Choose the baby’s rashi or birth star and this tool shows the Tirthankara names whose first sound is one of its naming syllables. It holds the names of the twenty-four Tirthankaras as the Logassa Sutra names them, Rishabha, Ajita, Sambhava and the rest, with the other names our Tirthankara pages give, such as Adinatha, Nemi and Sanmati: 33 names. Our page on Jain astrology notes that Jain families often choose from the names of Tirthankaras when naming a child, and that naming by the syllable of the birth nakshatra is common practice; this tool puts the two together.
For Kumbha, for example, the tool gives Sambhava and Sanmati, which begin with Sa, and Sumati, Suparshva and Suvidhi, which begin with Su, both syllables of Shatabhisha. Shitala and Shreyansa begin with a sound that has no classical syllable, and the first-letter chart used in Gujarat also puts them in Kumbha, so they are shown and marked. Karka and Makara have no Tirthankara name by the classical syllables.
How it works
The names. The Logassa Sutra, the praise of the twenty-four recited in Shvetambara pratikraman, names each Jina in turn, and our Logassa page gives its meaning lines name by name. Those 25 names (Suvidhi and Pushpadanta are both named for the ninth) are the core of the list. To them the tool adds the names that our Tirthankara pages give in their Names lines or name sections: Rishabhadeva, Adinatha and Adishvara for the first, Anantajit for the fourteenth, Nemi for the twenty-second, and Mahavira, Vira and Sanmati for the twenty-fourth.
What a name means. The tool writes nothing about a name itself. Where a Tirthankara’s own page explains his name, the tool quotes that page word for word: Hemachandra’s account in the Trishashti-Shalaka-Purusha-Charitra, in Helen Johnson’s translation, is behind most of them, and each page names its sources. Abhinandana, for instance, “is rejoicing, greeting, congratulation”, and Shitala “means cool”. Where a page gives no explanation, as for Suparshva, Shreyansa, Munisuvrata and Parshva, the tool shows none.
The rashi of a name. The first sound of each name is read the way our main site’s Rashi by Name calculator reads it, with the same code: the first consonant and the vowel it carries, matched against the classical naming syllables, four for each nakshatra and one for each pada (the avakahada chakra), so each syllable falls in one rashi. Ajita begins with A, the first pada of Krittika, in Mesha. Rishabha begins with Ri, the fourth pada of Chitra, in Tula.
Reading the result
The first line lists the naming syllables of the rashi or birth star you chose, in English and Devanagari, and says how many Tirthankara names begin with one of them. Each name then shows whose name it is, with a link to his page, the quotation about the name where his page has one, and the syllable, nakshatra, pada and rashi of its first sound. Leave both lists on “Any” to see all 33.
Some names show two readings. English letters cannot tell some sounds apart that Hindi and Gujarati write differently, so Chandraprabha can be read as Cha, in Meena, or Chha, in Mithuna, and Nami as Na in Vrishchika or the retroflex Na in Kanya. The spelling your family uses in Hindi or Gujarati decides which.
Where traditions differ
- Two charts for a name. Many families in Gujarat use a simpler first-letter chart that gives each rashi a handful of first letters. It mostly agrees with the nakshatra syllables, and the tool says where it does not.
- Shravana. Shravana has two traditional sets of syllables, and the tool shows both.
- Prakrit spellings. The Logassa itself is in Prakrit, and some names begin with another sound there: usabha for Rishabha, paumappaha for Padmaprabha. The tool reads the Sanskrit forms that our pages print in English letters.
- Malli. Our page on the nineteenth Tirthankara notes that Malli is a woman in the Shvetambara telling; the Digambara tradition reads the nineteenth as a man. The pages do not mark any name as a boy’s or a girl’s, and neither does this tool.
What it does not do
It does not find the baby’s birth star from the birth details: the Tirthankara of your birth star tool does that from the date, time and place of birth. It does not call any name lucky or unlucky, it does not count the letters for numerology, and it does not give meanings that our pages do not give. The rashi of a name is not the baby’s birth rashi, which comes from the Moon at birth. A family priest or an elder may follow a different custom, and theirs comes first.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Where do these Jain names come from?
From the names of the 24 Tirthankaras as the Logassa Sutra names them, and the other names our Tirthankara pages give, such as Adinatha, Nemi, Mahavira and Sanmati. There are 33 in all. The tool adds no names of its own.
↳ Why do some names have no meaning shown?
Because the tool shows only what the Tirthankara's own page says about the name, word for word. Where the page does not explain a name, as for Suparshva or Parshva, the tool leaves it unexplained rather than guess.
↳ How is the rashi of a name found?
From its first sound, matched against the classical naming syllables: four for each of the 27 nakshatras, one for each pada, so each syllable falls in one rashi. Ajita begins with A, the first pada of Krittika, in Mesha. This is the same method as our main site's Rashi by Name calculator.
↳ Why does Chandraprabha show two rashis?
In English letters "Cha" can stand for चा or for the aspirated छ, and the two belong to different nakshatras: चा to Revati, in Meena, and छ to Ardra, in Mithuna. Written in Hindi or Gujarati the name has only one reading.
↳ My baby's rashi has no name here. What then?
Karka and Makara have no Tirthankara name by the classical syllables, and several birth stars have none. That is a limit of this list, not of the baby's chart. The Tirthankara pages and your family's own custom are the place to go further.
↳ Are these boys' names or girls' names?
The tool does not say, because our pages do not. They are the names of the Tirthankaras. Our page on Mallinatha notes that in the Shvetambara telling the nineteenth Tirthankara, Malli, is a woman.