Mahavira (599 BCE–527 BCE), also known as Vardhamana, was the twenty-fourth and last tirthankara of Jainism. Therefore, although Mahavira is widely regarded as the founder of Jainism, he is more properly regarded as a reformer of Jainism. Mahavira was born into a royal family in what is now Bihar, India.
Humility is of five kinds: humility in faith, in knowledge, in conduct, in penance, and in decorum or etiquette.These lead to liberation.
Humility is the foundation of the Jain faith.The practice of self-restraint and austerity should make one humble and modest.To a person who is not humble , righteousness and austerity are of no avail.
Learning tempered with humility is beneficial in this world and the next.Just as a plant cannot grow without water, learning will not be fruitful without humility.
Study of scriptures (Svadhyaya) is of five kinds: 1. Reading of scriptural texts, 2. Questioning, 3. Repitition, 4. pondering over and 5. narration of religious discourses opening with auspicious praise(of Jina).
He who studies scriptures with devotion and without any desire for personal praise and honour but for purging of his karmic pollution will have the benefit of scriptural knowledge which conduces to happiness.
A monk devoted to penance and and desirous of practising meditation should neither have attraction for pleasant objects of senses nor rejection for unpleasant sense objects.
It is not possible to describe the state of liberation as it transcends verbal expression.Nor is there the possibility of argument as no mental activity is possible.There is no pride as it is devoid of all the blemishes of the mind.Having transcended pleasure and pain even the knowledge of the seventh hell does not cause melancholy.
Where there is neither pain nor pleasure,neither suffering nor obstacle, neither birth nor death, there is emancipation(Nirvana).
The wise man should not conceal the meaning of a scriptural text nor should he distort it.He should not harbour pride nor a tendency to self-display.He should not make fun of anyone nor bestow words of blessing on anyone.
By knowledge one understands the nature of substances, by faith one believes in them, by conduct one puts an end to the flow of karmas, and by austerity one attains purity.
Those who take wholesome and healthy food, in lesser quantity, never fall sick and do not need the services of a physician.They are their own physicians.They remain engaged in their internal purification.
One should practise Dharma before old age creeps up, the senses become feeble and one falls a prey to all kinds of diseases.(For, it will not be possible to practise Dharma later with a feeble and incompetent body.)
Death takes away the man who uselessly thinks,"I have this and I have not that, this I must do and this I should not do".Why then should a person be indolent?
An indolent person can never be happy and a lethargic person can never acquire knowledge.A person with attachments cannot acquire renunciation and a person who is violent cannot be compassionate.
Pride, anger, carelessness, illness and idleness are the five obstacles in the path of acquiring knowledge.
Anger spoils good relations, pride destroys humility, deceit destroys amity and greed destroys everything.
Conquer anger by forgiveness, pride by humility, deceit by straight-forwardness and greed by contentment.
The nights that pass by will never return.They bear no fruit for him who does not abide by Dharma.
The soul is the begetter of both happiness and sorrow, it is its own friend when it treads the path of righteousness and its own enemy when it treads the forbidden path.
A person who speaks the truth becomes trustworthy like a mother, venerable like a preceptor, and dear to everyone like a kinsman.
Truthfulness is the abode of austerity, self-restraint and all other virtues.Indeed, truthfulness is the source of all noble qualities as the ocean is that of the fish.
If there were numberless mountains of gold and silver as big as mount Kailasha, they would not satisfy an avaricious man; for avarice is boundless like the sky.
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