Jainism is a religion that originated in eastern India. Its most recent founder, Mahāvīra (lit., great hero, traditionally dated 599-27 or 582-10 B.C.E. but dated c.497-25 B.C.E. by scholars), was an elder contemporary of the Buddha. Mahāvīra is regarded as the last of twenty-four figures in our age known as tīrthāṅkara s (lit., ford makers, that is, those who show the way to liberation from the predicament of death and rebirth, which is thought of as crossing over a vast ocean)