Today is Mahaveer Jayanti.  So here comes the description of Jain community’s most important festival – Mahaveer Jayanti. Which is celebrated as the birth anniversary of Vardhman Mahaveer, who is 24 ^th Thirthankar of Jain religion. “treat people like you want to be treated by them”. “Ahimsa generates Ahimsa”. “But one should be so balanced and strong by mind, that even if someone hurts you by thoughts, you should give back just love which can be called motherly concern or the love for humankind.” These messages are circumvented by Jain Community’s last thirthankar Lord Mahaveer. The fiesta is celebrated with all grand preparations with a holy cradle procession of Lord Mahaveer, who propagated non-violence & spread the message of “Live and Let Live.” On the 13 ^th moon of Hindu new year (chaitra month), Mahaveer jayanti is celebrated, which is also called “Mahaveer Janma Kalnayak”. There are two groups of thinking caps who claim their own estimated dates about the birth of this great yogi.  According to the Digambar section of Jain community (the whole community is divided into 2 sections – Digambar & Shwetambar), Mahaveer was born on 615BC & Shwetambar part says its 599 BC in a district  Kundalagrama , Vaishali (Bihar) The mythologic legend says that Devnanda, the original mother of Mahaveer conceived him, but God transferred the embryo into Trishala. Shwetambar sect of religion says that mother of Mahaveer had 14 auspicious dreams before the great man came into the world, where as Shwetambars vouch for 14 dreams. The list of dreams along with the interpretations is given below. (source: jainuniversity.org) 1. Elephant: says that her son will establish a spiritual reign. 2. Bull: denotes that her son will become a great spiritual leader in the whole world. 3. Lion: indicates the fearlessness and the capability to lead the world. 4. Goddess Laxmi: says that her son will get all wealth, power & prospetrity in the world. 5. Garland of Flowers: indicates that the fragrance of her son will spread in the entire universe. 6. Full Moon: indicates that her son will have a great physical structure. 7. Sun: says her son’s power would be able to weed out all anger, greed and violence from every human being’s heart. 8. Large Flag: interprets that her son will be respected everywhere. 9. Silver Urn: says her son will be perfect with all virtues. 10. Lotus Lake: Indicates that her son will liberate entangled human beings from the circle of materialistic. 11. Milky Sea: Signifies that his son will glide through the ocean of life, death & miseries leading to liberation. 12. Celestial Air plane: means all Gods & Goddess would respect him 13. Heap of Gems: Infinite Virtues. 14. Smokeless Fire: Which signifies excellent wisdom of his son. All the interpretations of the above dreams are derived from the holy mythology of jain religion. So let’s spread the message of Ahinsa, which has more power than anything, which can change the world. It’s the utmost need of today, when Terrorism is increasing expanding its reign everywhere. Jai Jinendra!

Author’s Note: Sincere Thanks! to all those who helped us by contributing and guiding us to make this article possible (Devendra Chhapia – Organizer of Mahaveer Jain Parishad, Kamlesh-Mahaveer Yuva Chaitanya Parishad, Pushpendra Parmar- Social Worker, Subhash Kothari-Trustee of Samta yuva Sansthan, Pradeep Kumwat-Administrator of Alok Sansthan.)