Vira Nirvana Samvat
calendar used in Jainism
The Vira Nirvana Samvat (era) is a calendar era beginning on 7 October 527 BCE. It commemorates the nirvana of Mahavira, the 24th Jain Tirthankara. This is the oldest system of chronological reckoning which is still used in India.
History
The earliest text to mention 527 BCE as the year of Mahavira's nirvana is Yati-Vrishabha's Tiloya-Pannatti (6th century CE). Subsequent works such as Jinasena's Harivamśa (783 CE) mention the Vira Nirvana era, and give the difference between it and the Shaka era (beginning in 79 CE) as 605 years, 5 months & 10 days.
On 21 October 1974, the 2500th Nirvana Mahotsava was celebrated (according to the Indian national calendar) by Jains throughout India and overseas.
Usage
The Jain year Vira Nirvana Samvat is obtained by adding 469 or 470 years to the Kartikadi Vikram Samvat. For example, The Vira Nirvana Samvat 2544 started right after Diwali of 20 October 2017 on Vikram 2074, Kartika Krishna Amavasya (Chaitradi and Purnimanta). The new Chaitradiadi Vikram samvat (common in North India) starts seven months earlier in Chaitra, thus during Chaitra-Kartika Krishna, the difference between Vikram and Vir Nivana samvat is 469 years until Kartik Shukla 1 (Day following Diwali), when the difference becomes 470 years.
The Jain business people traditionally started their accounting year from Dipawali. The relationship between the Vir and Shaka era is given in Titthogali Painnaya and Dhavalaa by Acharya Virasena:
पंच य मासा पंच य वास छच्चेव होन्ति वाससया |
परिणिव्वुअस्स अरिहितो तो उप्पन्नो सगो राया ||
Thus, the Nirvana occurred 605 years, 5 months and 10 days before the Saka era.
“Vira Nirvana Samvat” enters the record as calendar used in Jainism. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vira, Nirvana and Samvat can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2297015. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974, 2017 and 2074.
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