Mahāvīr Jayantī

The story behind the day

Mahāvīra Jayantī is the birthday of Mahāvīra, whom Jains revere as the twenty-fourth and last Tīrthaṅkara of the present age. It falls on the thirteenth day of the bright fortnight of Caitra, in March or April, and Jains keep it. Images of Mahāvīra are carried in procession through the streets, and Jains go to their temples to pray and to hear teaching.^[1–5]

Origins

the fourteen dreams — The fourteen dreamsIllustration · AI-generated

Jain tradition says that Mahāvīra was born the son of a kṣatriya couple, King Siddhārtha and Queen Triśalā, at Kuṇḍagrāma, a village apparently near Vaiśālī in northern Bihar. His birthplace is not securely identified, and Jains name several possible sites. His parents gave him the name Vardhamāna. The Śvetāmbara account tells that Triśalā saw fourteen auspicious dreams when his soul was conceived; some accounts count sixteen.^[6–9]

What it marks

Jains call their authoritative teachers Jinas, the conquerors, or Tīrthaṅkaras, the makers of the ford. The Śvetāmbara tradition adds that a divinity miraculously moved the embryo into Triśalā's womb, an episode the Digambaras reject. The festival marks the birth of a teacher who, Jains hold, left home at thirty to become a wandering ascetic, spent more than twelve years on the mendicant's path and then attained omniscience, the perfect knowledge Jains call kevala jñāna. The Kalpa Sūtra, the most important canonical text for the Śvetāmbaras, tells the story of the birth; it is recited in their year's most important period, Paryuṣaṇa.^{[3, 10–12]}

How it came to be

The Śvetāmbaras date Mahāvīra's life to 599 to 527 BCE, though the Digambaras place his death in 510 BCE, and some modern scholars would move his life later, to about 490 to 410 BCE. Jains keep the festival. Its pictorial memory is carried by illustrated copies of the Kalpa Sūtra, made in Gujarat in the late fifteenth century and after, which show Triśalā describing her dreams to King Siddhārtha and later reclining on a couch with the newborn, attended by a maid with a fly-whisk. At Paryuṣaṇa, the recitation of the text is accompanied by the display of such illustrations.^{[2, 13–14]}

How it is kept

rath procession with the image — Rath procession with the imageIllustration · AI-generated

On the day, images of Mahāvīra are carried through the streets in procession. Jains go to their temples, which are decorated with flowers, flags and lamps, to offer prayers, and lectures on the Jain teaching are given there.^[4–5]

Sources

Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.