{"id":20535,"date":"2024-02-16T03:50:47","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T22:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=20535"},"modified":"2025-04-06T01:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T20:28:10","slug":"lord-mahavir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/lord-mahavir\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Lord Mahavir?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Lord Mahavir<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>He was the\u00a0twenty-fourth and the\u00a0last Tirthankara of the Jain religion.<\/li>\n<li>Mahavir was\u00a0born in 599 B.C. as a prince in Bihar.\u00a0At the age of 30, he left his family and royal household, gave up his worldly possessions, including clothing, and\u00a0became a monk.<\/li>\n<li>He followed an\u00a0extreme ascetic life,\u00a0attaining kevala, the stage of omniscience or highest perception.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Teaching a\u00a0doctrine of austerity, Mahavira\u00a0advocated nonviolence (ahimsa)\u00a0in all circumstances\u00a0and the\u00a0acceptance of the mahavratas, the\u00a0five \u201cgreat vows\u201d of renunciation.<\/li>\n<li>At the heart of right conduct for Jains lie the five great vows:\n<ul>\n<li>Nonviolence (Ahimsa): not to cause harm to any living beings<\/li>\n<li>Truthfulness (Satya): to speak the harmless truth only<\/li>\n<li>Non-stealing (Asteya): not to take anything not properly given<\/li>\n<li>Chastity (Brahmacharya): not to indulge in sensual pleasure<\/li>\n<li>Non-possession\/Non-attachment (Aparigraha):\u00a0complete detachment from people, places, and material things.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Mahavir\u2019s Teachings:<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0organized his followers\u00a0into a fourfold order, namely\u00a0monk (Sadhu),\u00a0nun (Sadhvi),\u00a0layman (Shravak), and\u00a0laywoman (Shravika).\u00a0Later on, they are\u00a0known as Jains.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0ultimate objective of his teaching is how one can\u00a0attain total freedom from the cycle of birth, life, pain, misery, and death, and\u00a0achieve the permanent\u00a0blissful state of one&#8217;s self. This is also\u00a0known as liberation, nirvana, absolute freedom,\u00a0or Moksha.<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0preached that right faith (samyak-darshana),\u00a0right knowledge (samyak-jnana), and\u00a0right conduct (samyak-charitra) together will\u00a0help attain the liberation of one&#8217;s self.<\/li>\n<li>Mahavir&#8217;s message of\u00a0nonviolence (Ahimsa),\u00a0truth (Satya),\u00a0non-stealing (Achaurya),\u00a0celibacy (Brahma charya), and\u00a0non-possession (Aparigraha) is full of universal compassion.<\/li>\n<li>Mahavir\u00a0rejected the concept of God as a creator, a protector, and a destroyer of the universe. He also\u00a0denounced the worshiping of gods\u00a0and goddesses\u00a0as a means of material gains and personal benefits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Who are Tirthankaras?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Tirthankaras are also known as\u00a0Arihants or Jinas.<\/li>\n<li>Arihant: One\u00a0who destroys his inner enemies like anger, greed, passion, ego, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Jina: One\u00a0who conquers his inner enemies like anger, greed, passion, ego, etc. The\u00a0followers of Jina are known as Jains.<\/li>\n<li>Tirthankara: Those Jinas\u00a0who establishes the four-fold order (Monk, Nun, Layman, and Laywoman) of religion.<\/li>\n<li>According to Jain philosophy, all Tirthankaras were human beings but they have attained a state of perfection or enlightenment through meditation and self-realization.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>They are the\u00a0Gods of Jains.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is Jainism?<\/h3>\n<p>Jainism is one of the three most ancient religions of India, with roots that go back to at least the mid-first century B.C.E. Today, it is still an integral part of Indian culture. Jainism teaches that the path to enlightenment is through nonviolence and reducing harm to living things (including plants and animals) as much as possible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/etimes\/trending\/rare-and-ancient-mahavir-statue-found-in-tamil-nadu\/articleshow\/107700071.cms?from=mdr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>A thousand year old Mahavir statue has been discovered in Tamil Nadu!<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lord Mahavir was the twenty-fourth and the last Tirthankara of the Jain religion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}