Skip to content
Coordinates of ThoughtHome of Philosophy
Join

Thinker · TH-0278

Mahavira

Mahāvīra, born Vardhamāna, is revered in Jainism as the twenty-fourth and last tīrthaṅkara of the present age. He taught in the Ganges plain in…

FollowStart a topic about Mahavira

महावीर

Also known as Mahāvīra, Vardhamāna, Vardhamana Mahavira, Jina

c. 599 – 527 BCE · Magadha and the Ganges plain (present-day Bihar), India

Traditions: Indian

Schools: Jainism

Mahāvīra, born Vardhamāna, is revered in Jainism as the twenty-fourth and last tīrthaṅkara of the present age. He taught in the Ganges plain in the same era as the Buddha; the dates given are the traditional ones, and many historians place him somewhat later. He left no writings: his teaching survives in the Jain canonical scriptures. He is central for extending non-violence (ahiṃsā) to all living beings, and later Jain logicians traced their doctrine of many-sidedness to his teaching.

Key ideas

  • Ahiṃsā, non-injury, extends to every living being, including animals, insects, plants and minute forms of life.
  • Liberation requires shedding the karmic matter that binds the soul, through ascetic discipline and right conduct.
  • Ascetics take five great vows: non-violence, truthfulness, not stealing, chastity and non-possession.
  • Reality is many-sided, so any single assertion captures only one standpoint; later thinkers systematised this as anekāntavāda and syādvāda.

Major works

  • Ācārāṅga Sūtra (Jain canonical text recording his teaching and ascetic life)
  • Sūtrakṛtāṅga (Jain canonical text recording his teaching)
  • Kalpa Sūtra (traditional biography, attributed to Bhadrabāhu)

In the conversation

In the Coordinates

The questions of philosophy where Mahavira takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.