This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti was founded in Jaipur, India, in March 1975 by Devendra Raj (D.R.) Mehta, after a road accident that crushed one of his own legs made him aware of the barriers disabled and underprivileged people face in obtaining artificial limbs. The organization's founding was set to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the nirvana of Bhagwan Mahavira, the twenty-fourth Tirthankara of Jainism, whose teaching of non-violence and compassion for all beings inspired its mission and gave the society its name.
The organization is known worldwide for the Jaipur Foot, a low-cost artificial limb it developed, and today provides artificial limbs, calipers, crutches, wheelchairs and other mobility aids entirely free of charge, operating fitment centres across India and holding fitment camps in dozens of countries beyond it.
Based in Jaipur, it is recognised as the world's largest organization for the fitment of artificial limbs, calipers and other mobility aids provided at no cost to recipients, a scale reached exactly fifty years after Mehta's founding accident. The society's own account frames that scale as a direct continuation of its founding purpose: a free device developed and distributed because its own founder once had none, extended in the decades since to disabled and underprivileged people well beyond Jaipur itself.