Death (moksha) of Mahavira and the consolidation of Jainism

Date

c. 527 BCE (traditional)

Category

Religion & ideology

Region

Northern India (Bihar)

Era

Classical Antiquity

Significance

Vardhamana Mahavira, the twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara of the current Jain cosmic cycle, died (attained moksha) according to Svetambara tradition at Pava in modern Bihar around 527 BCE.

Born into the Jnatrika clan near Vaishali, he renounced worldly life at about thirty, practised twelve years of severe asceticism, and after attaining omniscience (kevala jnana) spent three decades preaching. He reformed and systematised an older ascetic tradition associated with his predecessor Parshvanatha, articulating the doctrines of ahimsa (non-violence), anekantavada (the many-sidedness of truth), aparigraha (non-attachment) and the path of the Three Jewels. His teaching crystallised into Jainism, one of the world's oldest continuous religions, which profoundly shaped Indian ethics, vegetarianism, mercantile culture and philosophy. Mahavira was a near-contemporary of the Buddha, and the two movements represent the great heterodox (sramana) challenge to Vedic Brahmanical orthodoxy that defined the religious ferment of the Mahajanapada age.

Empires active in c. 527 BCE (traditional)

• Achaemenid Empire
  550 BCE – 330 BCE
• Roman Kingdom
  753 BCE – 509 BCE
• Scythians
  800 BCE – 300 BCE
• Zhou Dynasty
  1046 BCE – 256 BCE
• Carthaginian Empire
  650 BCE – 146 BCE
• Kingdom of Kush
  1070 BCE – 350 CE

Related religion & ideology events

• Enlightenment of the Buddha at Bodh Gaya
  c. 528 BCE (traditional)
• Nebuchadnezzar II Destroys Jerusalem and the First Temple
  587/586 BCE
• Josiah's reform and the 'Book of the Law' (Deuteronomic Reform)
  c. 622 BCE
• Ashoka commissions the Great Stupa at Sanchi
  c. 250 BCE
• The Septuagint: Hebrew scripture translated into Greek
  c. 250 BCE
• Third Buddhist Council and Ashoka's Buddhist missions
  c. 250 BCE

Further reading

A Little History of Religion

The wider story

A Little History of Religion

Richard Holloway

Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.

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