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Lord Mahāvīra’s Incredible Journey to Kevala-Jñāna By Dr. Parveen Jain
Dr. Parveen Jain is a longtime leader in the vibrant Jain community in the San Francisco Bay Area. He led a team to build the Jain Temple of San Francisco Bay Area and is deeply involved with the growth of Siddhachalam in New Jersey. He is very passionate about promoting the message of nonviolence and is enthusiastic about creating educational platforms for the dissemination of dharmic doctrines, especially the Jain doctrine. He is an author of the book titled “An Introduction to Jain Philosophy”. (parveen@jainfamily-us.com).
The incredible spiritual journey of Lord Mahāvīra to attain kevala-jñāna is a source of immense inspiration with immeasurable edifying value. By studying the life of Lord Mahāvīra, one can imagine the level of perseverance one must exert towards the goal of attaining kevala-jñāna. His life teaches us that the journey brings immense spiritual pleasure despite extraordinary efforts. For a pursuant of the same endgoal, grasping the “real value” of that pleasure and envisioning the end-goal splendor are essential to succeeding in the endeavor.
Lord Mahāvīra’s jīva reached the summit of spiritual perseverance after toiling through innumerable lifetimes. At some point in its birth-death cycles, his jīva awakened to recognize the soul’s exquisite characteristics. That would be his avatāra bhava. According to Śvetāmbara scriptures, the awakening occurred in the life of Nayasāra, a village head, twenty-seven reincarnation (bhava) before Mahāvīra’s final life. Digambara scriptures attribute that to his jīva’s birth as Purūravā, an indigenous person (bhīla), thirty-four reincarnation before the final life. Irrespective of the number of prior reincarnations, it is critical to note that there was a life when Mahāvīra’s jīva realized the right vision (samyag-draśti) and right faith (samyaktva) to pursue the ultimate liberation.
During the journey towards the final reincarnation in pursuit of kevala-jñāna, Mahāvīra’s jīva went through uncountable additional births in tiryañca species (plants, animals, and insects) beside the twentyseven or thirty-four significant or “notable” reincarnations (bhava).
Jain scriptures place the reincarnation of Nayasāra or Purūravā millions of years ago. In the subsequent reincarnations, whenever in the human body, Mahāvīra’s jīva continued to improve its perception (darśana), knowledge (jñāna), and conduct (cāritra) towards perfection to be finally born as Vardhamāna – the birth name of Lord Mahāvīra. As propounded by Lord Mahāvīra himself, this evolutionary progression
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is not exclusive to him. All likewise inclined jīvas have the capability to track similar trajectories. In its final birth (bhava) in 599 BCE, Lord Mahāvīra’s jīva possessed mati-jñāna (empirical knowledge), śruta-jñāna (scriptural or learned knowledge), and avadhi-jñāna (clairvoyance knowledge) at birth. These are the first three of the five progressive stages of enlightened knowledge (samyag-jñāna). The purpose of his last birth was to acquire the remaining two stages of samyag-jñāna, namely, manaḥprāyaya-jñāna (mind-reading knowledge or capturing the mental activity of other sentient beings) and, ultimately, kevala-jñāna (supreme wisdom) to attain the status of omniscient. Mahāvīra had a princely life for approximately thirty years, but he lived like a hermit with minimal use and no attachment to his worldly possessions. He displayed uncommon vision, wisdom, and supreme bravery (vīrya) during his early years. As elaborated in numerous texts, Mahāvīra faced many challenges, even in his youth, from adversaries but calmly handled and pacified every challenge without ever flaunting his valor or other supreme characteristics. Compassionate instincts always guided his demeanor, and equanimity was one of his inherent characteristics. Lord Mahāvīra knew that the attainment of enlightenment – the primary purpose of his last worldly life – would require rigorous efforts and unmatched tenacity. As much as he wanted to initiate his ascetic life at the earliest, Mahāvīra did not want to distress his parents and decided not to leave home so long as they were alive. Soon after their demise, Mahāvīra was ready to renunciate worldly life, but his brother, Nandivardhan, was grieved and pleaded with him not to leave soon after their parents’ departure. Again, out of empathy for his brother, Mahāvīra postponed his initiation into asceticism (dīkṣā) for two years.
