Mahavira, also known as Vardhamana, is revered in Jainism as the twenty‑fourth and final Tirthankara of the present cosmic cycle—a spiritual “ford‑maker” who shows beings how to cross the stream of bondage toward liberation. Born into a Kshatriya family in the region of present‑day Bihar, he began life as a prince but renounced worldly status and comforts around the age of thirty. Embracing a path of rigorous renunciation, he undertook severe austerities and deep meditation for twelve years, through which he is said to have attained kevala‑jñāna, or omniscient knowledge. From that point, he is regarded as a Jina, a “conqueror” of inner enemies such as attachment and hatred, and an exemplar of complete self‑mastery.

Within the Jain tradition, Mahavira is not seen as the founder of the religion but as its great reformer and revitalizer, one who clarified and systematized an already ancient spiritual path. He articulated and organized the doctrines that now stand at the heart of Jain thought and practice: radical ahiṃsā, or non‑violence toward all living beings; aparigraha, or non‑possessiveness and non‑attachment to material things; and anekāntavāda, the recognition that truth and reality have many aspects and cannot be confined to a single, one‑sided view. These principles are gathered into the path of right faith, right knowledge, and right conduct, forming a coherent way of life oriented toward liberation through self‑purification.

Mahavira’s role was also profoundly institutional. He established a fourfold saṅgha—monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen—and set forth detailed rules of conduct that continue to shape Jain monastic and lay communities. His teachings were preserved in scriptural traditions and became the doctrinal foundation for later Jain schools, especially in the way they understand ascetic discipline and ethical vows. At the end of his life, Mahavira is believed to have attained final liberation (moksha), becoming a siddha, a perfected soul beyond rebirth. In this way he stands, for Jains, as both the consummate teacher and the living proof that through non‑violence, non‑attachment, and disciplined insight, the soul can indeed be freed from all bondage.