Neminatha Ji

Neminatha, also called Arishtanemi, is the twenty-second tirthankara of the present age. His emblem is the conch shell, and he is shown dark blue or black. His is the best-known life of any tirthankara except Mahavira, for one reason: he renounced the world at his own wedding, on hearing the cries of the animals penned for the feast. Jain tradition also holds him to be a first cousin of Krishna.

Nemi, Arishtanemi. Do not confuse him with Naminatha, the twenty-first tirthankara and his immediate predecessor. The names differ by a single letter and the sources themselves carry a warning about it.

Lanchana, the emblem: the conch shell. Body colour: dark blue or blackish. He is sometimes shown with a chakra, a discus, near the foot or hand, referring to an episode in which as a child he spun Krishna's discus with his toe. Yakshi: Ambika, also called Kushmandini, agreed by both traditions and one of the most recognisable figures in Jain art: seated beneath a mango tree, riding a lion, with two sons. Yaksha: Gomedha in Shvetambara tradition, Sarvanha in Digambara tradition.

The wedding. Neminatha was betrothed to Rajimati, daughter of King Ugrasena. As his wedding procession approached, he heard animals crying out, penned and waiting to be slaughtered to feed his wedding guests. He turned the procession back, had the animals released, and renounced the world on the spot, without completing the marriage. Rajimati's response is part of the story and should not be dropped from it. She did not simply return home. She took initiation herself and became a Jain nun. The episode is the tradition's foundational statement about ahimsa: that a celebration bought with suffering is not a celebration. It is carved on the ceilings of the Luna Vasahi temple at Mount Abu, among other places. His initiation and omniscience both came at Sahasavan on Girnar, after fifty-four days, and his liberation on Girnar's fifth peak.

Father: Samudravijaya, brother of Vasudeva. Mother: Shivadevi. Birthplace: Shauripura, traditionally identified near Bateshwar in Uttar Pradesh. Dynasty: the Yadu line, a branch of the Harivamsha, making him the second of only two tirthankaras outside the Ikshvaku line. Because Samudravijaya and Vasudeva were brothers, Jain tradition makes Neminatha and Krishna first cousins.

Girnar is his mountain, and this platform carries it: three of his five kalyanakas are placed there, and its complex of some fourteen temples is built around him. He is also the presiding deity of the Luna Vasahi at Dilwara, of the Neminatha temple at Kumbhariya, and is enshrined at Kulpakji and Tirumalai. Shauripura, near Bateshwar, is venerated as his birth site.

The yaksha's name differs by sect; the yakshi Ambika is agreed. No difference was found in the emblem, colour, dynasty or the wedding narrative itself. On Krishna, a caution. The Jain tradition tells its own story about Krishna, in which he is a major figure with a place in Jain cosmology quite different from the one he holds in Hindu tradition, and in which Neminatha's spiritual standing is the higher. The two traditions are telling genuinely different stories about overlapping figures. This platform carries both, describes the Jain account as Jain doctrine, and does not adjudicate between them.