Mahāvīra

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

An eternal universe with no creator; the divine is the liberated soul

Pas de Dieu créateurIl le dit expressément

In the Jain canon attributed to him, Mahavira teaches that the universe is eternal and created by no god: it is made of souls (jiva) and non-living substances (ajiva) that follow their own laws. The Sutrakritanga examines and rejects the doctrines that ascribe the world to a creator god, to Brahma or to Ishvara. What Jainism venerates is not a lord of the cosmos but the tirthankaras, human souls who by their own effort shed karma and attained omniscience (kevala). These perfected souls do not intervene in the world or grant favours: they are model and guide. Liberation therefore depends on each soul’s conduct and knowledge, not on the will of a God.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

Each being is an eternal individual soul, veiled by karmic matter

Une âme en évolutionIl le dit expressément

The Jainism that goes back to Mahavira affirms countless souls (jiva), eternal, uncreated and individual, whose nature is consciousness, knowledge and bliss. These qualities are veiled by subtle particles of karma that cling to the soul through action driven by the passions. The soul transmigrates through the four destinies (hells, animals and plants, humans and gods) and can be purified life after life. When it sheds all karma it attains omniscience and rises to the summit of the universe, where it keeps its individuality forever. The true self is neither body nor passions, but neither does it merge into an Absolute: it is a soul recovering its original purity.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

Karma, drawn by violence and passions, binds the soul to pain

Le karma et l'apprentissage de l'âmeIl le dit expressément

In the Jain canon suffering is explained by karma, understood as a subtle matter that flows into the soul when it acts driven by the passions (kashaya): anger, pride, deceit and greed. Violence is the action that attracts the most karma, and the Acaranga insists that all beings love life, desire pleasure and hate pain. Accumulated karma ripens into experiences of suffering in this life and the next. But Mahavira does not teach resignation: karma can be stopped through right conduct and destroyed through asceticism (tapas). Hardships voluntarily accepted by the monk burn up past karma. Pain is thus the consequence of one’s own acts and an occasion for purification.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

The soul transmigrates through four destinies until freed and ascending

Renaissance selon le karmaIl le dit expressément

According to the Jain canon, at death the soul, drawn by its karma, is reborn in one of four destinies: the hells, animals and plants, humans or gods. None is final, not even the heavenly. Only the soul that has destroyed all its karma escapes the cycle and rises to the summit of the universe, where it abides in omniscience and bliss. The Uttaradhyayana recalls with the image of the dry leaf that human life is short and must not be wasted: Gautama must not be careless for a single moment. The tradition also values voluntary death by fasting (sallekhana), accepted in full awareness and without passion when life can no longer sustain the practice.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

Right faith, knowledge and conduct; asceticism that burns karma

Par une pratique disciplinéeIl le dit expressément

Mahavira’s path, as handed down by the Jain canon, is one of self-effort. Chapter 28 of the Uttaradhyayana, devoted to the road to liberation, sums it up as right knowledge, faith, conduct and asceticism. Conduct takes concrete form in the monk’s five great vows: non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity and non-possession. Asceticism (tapas), inner and outer, destroys accumulated karma, and vigilance prevents new karma from entering. No one can do this work for another; one of the sayings attributed to him asks one to fight oneself rather than external enemies, since conquering oneself is the greatest victory. The fruit is omniscience (kevala) and final liberation.

Faut-il un maître ?

The Jina shows the ford, but each soul crosses alone

Utile mais pas indispensableIl le dit expressément

For Jains Mahavira is a tirthankara, a ‘ford-maker’ who shows the crossing through the ocean of rebirths. His teaching was handed down by his chief disciples (ganadharas) and is preserved in a fourfold community of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen, with detailed rules of obedience to superiors and of communal life. But the teacher neither saves nor grants grace: the Acaranga says, in a line recorded among his sayings, that one is one’s own friend and need not seek friends outside. The tirthankara teaches and gives example, the community sustains, and the work of purifying the soul is done by each through their own effort.

Le monde est-il réel ?

An eternal universe of substances that endure and change

Un ordre naturel en transformationIl le dit expressément

Jainism teaches that the world is real, eternal and uncreated, made up of six substances: souls, matter, the principle of motion, that of rest, space and time. Each substance endures in its essence while its modes arise and pass away: everything is at once permanent and changing. The universe passes through immense cycles of ascent and descent, without beginning or end, and is ordered in regions: the hells below, the middle world of humans and the heavens above. This vision goes with the doctrine of many-sidedness (anekantavada): no statement about reality exhausts it. The world is no illusion, but its truth requires looking at it from many sides.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

Friendship with all beings, enmity towards none

Une compassion sans limitesIl le dit expressément

Love, in Mahavira’s Jainism, takes the form of universal non-violence. The Acaranga grounds it in reciprocity: all beings love life, desire pleasure and shrink from pain, and therefore no breathing being should be killed, mistreated or tormented. The confession formula preserved in the Avasyaka, which Jains recite every year, asks forgiveness of all beings, forgives them and declares friendship with all and enmity towards none. That benevolence extends to insects, plants and invisible beings, and demands meticulous care in every act. Affective attachment, by contrast, is considered a binding passion: Jain love is benevolence without possession.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

Against fatalism: human effort changes the course of karma

Le karma et le choixIl le dit expressément

Mahavira shared his time and setting with Makkhali Gosala, head of the Ajivikas, who taught that everything is determined by fate (niyati) and that human effort is useless. The Jain canon presents him as Mahavira’s great adversary. In the Upasakadasa Mahavira refutes a potter who follows Gosala with a practical argument: if someone broke his pots, would he punish them or think it was all determined? For Jainism karma truly conditions the present, but the soul can stop its inflow through vigilance and destroy it through asceticism. Effort (purushartha) is real and decisive: without it the doctrine of liberation would make no sense.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

The daily duties: equanimity, confession and abandonment of the body

Le rite et la culture de soiIl le dit expressément

Jainism does not pray to a God who answers: the liberated tirthankaras do not intervene in the world. Their veneration is a remembrance of their example. Daily practice is organised in the six obligatory duties preserved in the Avasyaka: equanimity (samayika), praise of the tirthankaras, veneration of the teacher, confession of faults (pratikramana), motionless abandonment of the body (kayotsarga) and voluntary renunciation. Tradition attributes to Mahavira long periods of motionless meditation in which he bore cold, heat and assaults without reacting. Meditation serves to stop the inflow of karma and burn what has accumulated, and ultimately leads to omniscience.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

The pure soul’s omniscience surpasses all sensory and textual knowledge

L'ultime est au-delà du mentalIl le dit expressément

Jain epistemology, which the canon attributes to Mahavira’s teaching, distinguishes five kinds of knowledge: sensory and mental, scriptural, clairvoyance, knowledge of others’ minds and omniscience (kevala). The first two are indirect, mediated by senses and mind; the last is direct, proper to the soul freed from all karma, and knows all things in all their modes. Mahavira is said to have attained it after twelve years of asceticism. Meanwhile human reasoning is partial, and the doctrine of many-sidedness (anekantavada) teaches one not to absolutise any statement. Reason is useful and necessary, but the ultimate is seen only by the purified soul.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

The monk’s total renunciation is the path; the layperson follows halfway

Se retirer pour trouverIl le dit expressément

According to the Kalpa Sutra and the Acaranga, Mahavira left his princely life at thirty, renounced his possessions and wandered for twelve years as an ascetic, enduring hunger, cold and assault, until he attained omniscience. The path he taught has renunciation at its centre: the monk’s five great vows demand owning nothing and leaving family life. Laypeople keep milder versions of those vows and support the monastic community, but their liberation lies through a future renunciation. This withdrawal is not indifference to the world: non-violence towards every living being is its way of relating to it.