Mahāvīra Nirvāṇa (Jain Dīpāvali)

When it falls

The new moon of Kārttika, the night of Dīpāvali, in October or November. The Jain era (Vīra Nirvāṇa Saṃvat) is counted from the following morning.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

Mahāvīra gave his last teaching at Pāvāpurī in Bihar over two days without pause, and in the early hours of the new moon left the body and attained mokṣa, release from every rebirth. The eighteen kings who were listening lit lamps so that his light would not seem to have gone out; that, in the Jain telling, is why lamps are lit on this night.

His chief disciple Gautama Swāmī attained complete knowledge the same night, so the next dawn is kept as the first day of the year, and Jain merchants open their new account books on it.

How the day is kept

• A night of prayer and the chanting of the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra, Mahāvīra's last sermon, in the temples.
• Lamps lit at home and in the temples, and at Pāvāpurī the Jal Mandir, the temple in the middle of the lotus lake where his cremation was, lit for the night.
• Nirvāṇa lāḍḍū offered in the temple at the early-morning hour of the passing.
• The new year's account book opened the next morning after a pūjā, and the Jain era's year number advances.

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