The Doctrines of Mahavira

Summary

Satya Ranjan Banerjee’s essay “The Doctrines of Mahāvīra” sets out to reappraise the life and teachings of Vardhamāna Mahāvīra, the 24th Jaina Tīrthaṅkara. The author situates Mahāvīra in the sixth century B.C., a time when spiritual teachers such as the Buddha, Zoroaster and Pythagoras were transforming human thought. Mahāvīra’s life story, reconstructed from the early traditions of both Jaina sects, begins with his birth near Vaiśālī to a kṣatriya family in 599 B.C. According to Banerjee and modern historians, he grew up in a world dominated by Brahmanical ritual and social hierarchyhttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahavira-Jaina-teacher#:~:text=Although%20accounts%20of%20the%20life,caste%20and%20having%20a%20daughter. At the age of thirty he renounced wealth and family, became a wandering ascetic and practised severe austerities for twelve yearshttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahavira-Jaina-teacher. During this period of meditation and non‑violence he endured physical abuse and cultivated compassion for all living beingshttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahavira-Jaina-teacher#:~:text=Mahavira%20renounced%20the%20world%20and,continuously%20during%20most%20of%20the. Ultimately he attained kevala‑jñāna, or omnisciencehttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahavira-Jaina-teacher#:~:text=expressly%20prepared%20for%20him,the%20highest%20stage%20of%20perception, and spent the remaining thirty years of his life preaching his doctrine across the Ganga basin before achieving nirvāṇa at Pāvā in 527 B.C. The core of Mahāvīra’s message, Banerjee explains, is an ethical and philosophical revolution that challenged many assumptions of the Vedic tradition. He rejected the idea of a creator‑god and argued that the misery and inequality present in the world are the result of individual karma rather than divine will. This led him to criticise animal sacrifice, question the eternal validity of the Vedas and deny the permanence of the ātman; in its place he taught that reality is both permanent and changing and must be understood through anekāntavāda (non‑absolutism) and syādvāda, the doctrine of conditional predication. The essay shows how Mahāvīra’s insistence on ahiṃsā (non‑violence) went beyond the negative injunction not to harm but extended to positive virtues such as forgiveness, compassion, friendliness and joy. Mahāvīra thus offered a method for overcoming greed, anger and attachment through self‑discipline and meditation, culminating in the liberation of the soul. Banerjee situates Mahāvīra’s teachings within the wider religious and social context of ancient India. Unlike the monotheistic or fatalistic doctrines of the time, Jainism teaches that each soul can become liberated through its own efforts and that no outside creator can absolve karmic consequences. While acknowledging similarities with Buddhism, the author stresses that Jainism retained elements of the Hindu social order and always remained a primarily Indian faith. The essay ends by arguing that Mahāvīra’s principles of non‑violence, equality and self‑control remain relevant in the modern world. Banerjee believes that a proper understanding of these doctrines could mitigate the violence, greed and hatred that plague contemporary societies.