Concept

Neminatha

Summary
Neminātha (Devanagari: नेमिनाथ) (Sanskrit: नेमिनाथः), also known as Nemi and Ariṣṭanemi (Devanagari: अरिष्टनेमि), is the twenty-second Tīrthaṅkara of Jainism in the present age (Avasarpini). Neminatha lived 81,000 years before the 23rd Tirthankara Parshvanatha. According to traditional accounts, he was born to King Samudravijaya and Queen Shivadevi of the Yadu dynasty in the north Indian city of Sauripura. His birth date was the fifth day of Shravana Shukla of the Jain calendar. Krishna, who was the 9th and last Jain Vasudev, was his first cousin. Neminatha, when heard the cries of animals being killed for his marriage feast, freed the animals and renounced his worldly life and became a Jain ascetic. The representatives of this event are popular in Jain art. He had attained moksha on Girnar Hills near Junagadh, and became a siddha, a liberated soul which has destroyed all of its karma. Along with Mahavira, Parshvanatha and Rishabhanatha, Neminatha is one of the twenty-four Tirthankaras who attract the most devotional worship among the Jains. His icons include the eponymous deer as his emblem, the Mahavenu tree, Sarvanha (Digambara) or Gomedha (Śhvētāmbara) Yaksha, and Ambika Yakshi. The name Neminatha consists of two Sanskrit words, Nemi which means "rim, felly of a wheel" or alternatively "thunderbolt", and natha which means "lord, patron, protector". According to the Jain text Uttarapurana, as well as the explanation of Acharya Hemchandra, it was the ancient Indian deity Indra who named the 22nd tirthankara as Neminatha, because he viewed the Jina as the "rim of the wheel of dharma". In Svetambara Jain texts, his name Aristanemi came from a dream his mother had during pregnancy, where she saw a "wheel of Arista jewels". His full name is mentioned as Aristanemi which is an epithet of the sun-chariot. Neminatha's name is spelled close to the 21st tirthankara Naminatha. Neminatha was the twenty-second Tirthankara (ford-maker) of the avasarpiṇī (present descending cycle of Jain cosmology).
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