The date of Mahavira's birth is calculated differently across the two major branches of Jainism and by modern historians working from comparative chronological evidence. Svetambara tradition places his birth in 599 BCE, calculated backward from the traditional 527 BCE date given for his death after a life of seventy two years. Digambara tradition, using a somewhat different traditional chronology, generally places his birth several decades earlier. Modern scholars, working from a revised chronology that also affects the traditionally dated life of the Buddha, have proposed a birth date closer to the mid to late fifth century BCE, considerably later than either traditional reckoning, based on cross referencing Jain, Buddhist and other regional chronological evidence.
Beyond the date itself, the two Jain traditions differ on other details of Mahavira's early life: Svetambara sources describe an embryo transfer in which Mahavira's soul was said to have been moved from the womb of a Brahmin woman to that of the Kshatriya queen Trishala, correcting what was considered an inappropriate birth for a future Tirthankara, a story Digambara tradition does not accept in the same form.
These differences, consistent with the broader pattern of divergence between the two traditions across many aspects of Jain sacred history, reflect centuries of separate doctrinal and narrative development following their schism rather than a disagreement historians are in a position to resolve through independent evidence, since both traditions rest on scripture recorded well after the events they describe.