Maha-Vira Jayanti.

Maha Veera Jayanti.

Born in an era of social disparity, killing and violence inflicted in the name of rituals and sacrifice and for vengeance and hatred, Lord Maha-Veera emerged as a reformist, thinker, law-giver and guide. He sought to achieve a multi-fold mission aiming especially at a change in the prevailing system of thought, economic structure, social set-up, and ethical values seeking to equalize all living beings respecting alike the life contained in a grass-leaf, insect, or human being, and re-defined sanctity and potentialities of individual self - 'jiva', as Maha-Veera has called it, in attaining salvation - 'nirvana', by its own doing. Far ahead the motto : 'live and let live' - commonly attributed to Lord Maha-Veera, the ultimate aim that he set before all 'jivas' was : 'parasparopagraha jeevanam' - all living beings, by virtue that they bear life, are under obligation to mutually protect and help life in whatsoever form it is contained. Instead of only 'let live', life was obliged to mutually and positively promote life irrespective of who or what bore it.

Before or even after Maha-Veera, survival of mankind, or at the most animals, was the prime concern of man's thought and endeavor. Maha-Veera's umbrella extended to entire life, irrespective of form - grass-leaf, ant, elephant, man or whatever that contained it. Environmentalists, or rather all rational minds, are now worried about irrational and injurious damage to nature - vegetation, minerals and all its resources, which they think are primarily responsible for ecological balance - an essential condition of man's survival. This concern surfaced more intensely and rationally in Maha-Veera's thought some 2600 years ago when he ordained that life sustained in life, mutually and obligatorily - not in isolation or by destroying other, as to Maha-Veera, life was life's means and obligation. Contemporary minds - environmentalists and others, seek to protect nature but 
primarily for man's survival; Maha-Veera sought to protect it - or rather every form of life, for its own sake.

After 12 years of practicing such austerities, Maha-Veera attained kevala, the highest stage of perception. Maha-Veera revived and reorganized Jaina doctrine and its monastic order, thus being credited as the founder of Jainism. Basing his doctrines, according to tradition, on the teachings of the 23rd Tirthankara, Maha-Veera systematized earlier Jaina doctrines--along with metaphysical, mythological, and cosmological beliefs--and also established the rules and guidelines for the monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen of Jaina religious life.

Maha-Veera taught that a man can save his soul from the contamination of matter by living a life of extreme asceticism and by practicing nonviolence toward all living creatures. This advocacy of nonviolence encouraged his followers to become strong advocates of vegetarianism, which in the course of time helped to bring about a virtual end to sacrificial killing in Indian rituals. His followers were aided in their quest for salvation by accepting the five maha-vratas that have been attributed to Maha-Veera: renunciation of killing, of speaking untruths, of greed, of sexual pleasure, and of all attachments to living beings and nonliving things. Maha-Veera's predecessor Parshvanatha preached only four vows.

Maha-Veera was given the title Jina, which subsequently became a synonym for Tirthankara. He died, according to tradition, in 527 BC at Pava in Bihar state, leaving a group of followers who established Jainism, which, with its practice of nonviolence, has profoundly influenced Indian culture.