Vardhamana Mahavira (Nigantha Nataputta / Jnatrputra), महावीर वर्धमान
c. 599-527 BC (traditional); c. 497-425 BC on the revised chronology · Śramaṇa Traditions · Prominent
Jains count Mahavira the twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara, the figure from whom their historical tradition descends. Tradition presents him as a reformer rather than a founder: he restated the law of Parshvanatha and added chastity as a fifth vow. The oldest layer of scripture gives him a nonviolence with no exceptions, reaching plants and the bodies of earth, water, fire and wind, and souls beyond counting that each last forever.
Signature
The position Mahavira is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ethics
- strongly leans Means
- Primary Bond
- All Beings
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Individualism (80 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (100 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (0 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Multiplicity (100 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (100 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (90 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Ethics
- strongly leans Means (100 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Allegiance
- strongly leans Global (90 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Mahavira refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Good and Evil
- Karmic Balance
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Final Liberation / No End
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Karmic Causation
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Death
- Karmic Cycle
What happens at death? - Primary Bond
- All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?