Mahavir Janma Kalyanak

Mahavir Janma Kalyanak celebrates the birth of Vardhamana Mahavira, the twenty-fourth Tirthankara of the present Jain era. Jain tradition remembers his birth into a royal family and the auspicious dreams seen by his mother before his arrival. Though raised with comfort and privilege, Vardhamana eventually renounced household life at about thirty and spent years in severe discipline, meditation and non-attachment. He attained kevala jnana, perfect knowledge, and then taught a path centred on ahimsa, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity or responsible restraint, and non-possession. His teachings shaped the fourfold Jain sangha of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. The festival is therefore not only a birth celebration; processions, temple worship, charity and readings of Mahavira's life point back to the demanding ethical ideal of reducing harm, attachment and ego in everyday life.

Mahavir Janma Kalyanak is significant to the community that observes it and helps preserve religious, family and cultural continuity.

A procession with the image in a decorated chariot, and the abhishek at the temple. The fourteen dreams of Trishala are staged in many places. Charity is the substance of the day - food, medicine and animal welfare - and in Gujarat it is a public holiday.