The ashtamangala are eight auspicious figures drawn, carved or set out before a Jina image. They are not amulets and nothing in them acts on the person who draws them. Read in order, they are a set of statements about what the soul is and where it is going, and the most familiar of them, the swastika, is a diagram of rebirth rather than a wish for good fortune.
Almost every Jain child has seen them without being told what they are: eight small brass plaques on a temple shelf, eight shapes stamped along the border of an invitation card, or the one your grandmother traces in rice before the image every morning. This page names all eight in both traditions, gives what each is understood to mean, and is honest about which of those meanings are canonical and which are commentary.
Mangala does not mean lucky
The word does the work here, so it is worth slowing down on it.
Mangala is usually rendered “auspicious,” and in ordinary English that slides straight into “lucky.” In Jain usage it does not. A mangala is something whose presence at the beginning of an act sets the mind rightly for the act. That is why the chulika of the Navkar Mantra calls the fivefold salutation the first of all mangalas: not because saying it procures a result, but because it is the correct thing to have in your mind before you begin anything.
The eight symbols work the same way. They are placed at a threshold, on a book’s first page, on a plate of rice before an image, on a wedding invitation, because a threshold is exactly where a reminder belongs. Nothing in Jain doctrine allows a drawn figure to influence an outcome. Karma is bound and shed by the soul’s own activity, and there is no deity in this system with the standing to make an exception. The symbol works on the person looking at it, or it does nothing at all.
The Shvetambara eight
This is the list most Jains mean when they say ashtamangala, and it is the set drawn in unbroken rice on the pat before an image during puja.
| Symbol | What it looks like | What it is understood to say | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Svastika | Four-armed cross with bent arms | The four gatis the soul is born into. Read with the marks above it, the whole path out |
| 2 | Shrivatsa | A diamond or fourfold curl | The mark on the chest of a Jina, from which the teaching issued |
| 3 | Nandavarta | A svastika enlarged to nine corners per arm | Nandi, joy or prosperity, in nine forms, material and spiritual |
| 4 | Vardhamanaka | A shallow dish, often shown as two stacked | The name means “increasing”: growth of merit, wealth and standing |
| 5 | Bhadrasana | A low throne or seat | The seat made holy by the Jina’s feet resting on it |
| 6 | Kalasha | A full pot, usually with leaves | Fullness. The pot poured at consecration and at every welcome |
| 7 | Darpana | A hand mirror | Seeing your own self as it is, which is the whole of the practice |
| 8 | Matsya-yugma | A pair of fish | Read in the iconographic literature as victory over Kamadeva, whose banner carries the fish |
Two of these have a second life elsewhere on this site, which is worth knowing before you try to identify anything from a photograph. The shrivatsa is also the lanchhana of Shitalanatha in Shvetambara reckoning, and it is additionally placed on the chest of every Jina image, so finding one tells you almost nothing on its own. The nandavarta is the lanchhana of Aranatha in Shvetambara reckoning and of Suparshvanatha in Digambara reckoning, which means the same drawn figure is a statement about the eighteenth Tirthankara, about the seventh, or about no Tirthankara at all, depending entirely on where it sits.
On the meanings. The eight figures themselves are old and stable. The glosses in the right-hand column are not scripture. They come from the commentarial and iconographic literature, they vary between sources, and some are clearly later readings supplied for symbols whose original sense had already been forgotten. We give them because they are what the tradition says, and we label them because that is not the same as what the tradition can prove.
The Digambara eight, which are not the same eight
This is the divergence most general accounts skip, and skipping it makes half the Jain temples in India unreadable.
The Digambara tradition also keeps eight auspicious symbols, but the list is a different list. A commonly given set is: chatra (the parasol), dhvaja (the banner), kalasha (the pot), chamara (the fly whisk), darpana (the mirror), vyajana (the fan), supratishtha or bhadrasana (the seat), and jhari (the spouted water vessel).
Only three overlap with the Shvetambara list: the kalasha, the mirror and the seat. The svastika, shrivatsa, nandavarta, vardhamanaka and pair of fish are not in the Digambara set, and the parasol, banner, whisk, fan and water vessel are not in the Shvetambara one.
Notice what the Digambara list is made of. Nearly every item on it is a piece of the ashta-pratiharya, the eight grand attendances that the tradition says appear around a Jina after omniscience: the parasol above, the whisks waved at either side, the celestial drum, the shower of flowers, the ashoka tree, the throne, the halo and the divine sound. The Digambara eight are the furniture of a Tirthankara’s presence. The Shvetambara eight are a set of abstract signs. Both are called ashtamangala, and they are doing genuinely different work.
We also record, plainly, that Digambara enumerations differ among themselves more than the Shvetambara one does, with the vardhamanaka appearing in some lists in place of the jhari. Where the sources we can name do not settle a question, we say the question is unsettled rather than picking the version that makes the table tidy. That standard is set out on our method page.
The svastika, said plainly
What the sathiya actually is
The four arms are the four gatis, the four kinds of birth a soul takes: deva (heavenly), manushya (human), tiryancha (animal and plant), and naraka (hellish). Above the arms are three dots: samyak darshana, samyak jnana and samyak charitra, the three jewels. Above the dots is a crescent, the siddhashila at the top of the universe, and a single dot above the crescent, the liberated soul that has arrived there. Read from the bottom upward, the figure says: this is the wheel you are on, this is what gets you off it, this is where you land.
That is a diagram of samsara and moksha. It is not a wish. Nobody draws a sathiya in order to be given something, and a Jain who understands what the four arms are will find the “good luck symbol” reading slightly comic, because all four of the four arms are places you are trying to leave.
The figure is drawn in akshat, whole husked rice, which is used because husked rice cannot germinate and so is not a living seed. The offering of akshat is itself read as a request for the akshaya state, the imperishable one, which is the same idea again.
The svastika is also the lanchhana of Suparshvanatha, the seventh Tirthankara, cut into the pedestal beneath his images. Hemachandra records the infant as born “marked with a svastika.”
On its age, and on the twentieth century. The svastika is one of the oldest continuously used signs in the world. It appears on seals of the Indus Valley civilisation in the third millennium BCE, and independently in Europe, Anatolia and East Asia long before any contact with India. It has been a Jain, Hindu and Buddhist sign for well over two thousand years without interruption.
The German National Socialist party adopted a version of the figure as its emblem in 1920, under the German name Hakenkreuz, hooked cross. That is a separate sign, with a separate name, a separate meaning, and a history about a century long. The Jain svastika predates it by millennia and is not derived from it in any respect. Two practical notes follow, and they are practical rather than political. First, public display of the Nazi emblem is restricted by law in Germany and several other European countries, and the law does not always distinguish clearly between the two; a Jain family living there should know the local position before putting a sathiya on the front door. Second, the confusion is worth explaining to a child before somebody else explains it to them badly.
Where the eight come from
The oldest hard evidence is archaeological rather than textual, and it sits at Mathura.
The ayagapatas, the votive tablets set up by ordinary Jain families at Mathura around the turn of the Common Era, carry these symbols already: svastikas, fish pairs, full pots and seats, arranged around a central Jina figure or a wheel. They are among the earliest Jain devotional objects that survive, they were commissioned by named lay donors including women, and several are held in the Government Museum, Mathura, and the State Museum, Lucknow. By the time anybody wrote down a list of eight, the figures had been in use for centuries.
That is also why the two sectarian lists can differ without either being an innovation. Both are selections, made later, from a common older stock of auspicious signs shared across Indian religions. Neither sect invented its eight. Each fixed a set.
How a household actually uses them
- Drawn in rice. A sathiya with three dots and a crescent, traced in akshat on the plate or the pat at the start of puja. This is the single most common Jain use of any symbol anywhere.
- On the threshold. A svastika in kanku on the door frame at Diwali and at Bestu Varas, and on the new account books at Chopda Pujan.
- At the top of a page. The first page of a ledger, a wedding card, a letter of invitation, a hand-copied manuscript.
- As eight objects. Many temples keep the eight as brass or silver plaques on a stand before the image. Households sometimes keep a small set on the shelf of a ghar derasar.
- In the Navpad vidhi. The Shvetambara Navpad Oli prescribes a counted number of svastikas for each of the nine pads, so the figure is drawn by the dozen across those nine days.
What they are not
Three things, stated flatly, because a great deal of what circulates online gets them wrong.
They are not protective. No Jain source claims that a drawn or worn symbol shields the person who has it. Jainism has no creator, no judge and no intervening power, and a figure made of rice has no standing that a person does not. The Jain reading of a birth chart rests on exactly the same footing: a sign points at what is, and does not produce it.
They are not a Jain version of a Buddhist set. The Tibetan Buddhist eight auspicious signs, including the endless knot, the conch and the victory banner, are a real and separate list. The two overlap in a couple of items because both draw on a shared Indian stock of auspicious figures. Neither is a copy of the other, and reference articles that merge the tables produce a list belonging to nobody.
They are not a requirement. Sthanakvasi and Terapanth families keep no image, and often no drawn figure either, and they are not doing an abbreviated version of anything. Their position is doctrinal rather than lax, and it is set out properly on the home shrine page.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What are the eight auspicious symbols of Jainism?
In the Shvetambara tradition they are the svastika, shrivatsa, nandavarta, vardhamanaka, bhadrasana, kalasha, darpana and matsya-yugma. The Digambara tradition keeps a different eight, commonly given as chatra, dhvaja, kalasha, chamara, darpana, vyajana, supratishtha and jhari, of which only the pot, the mirror and the seat overlap with the Shvetambara list. The Digambara set is drawn largely from the ashta-pratiharya, the attendances around a Jina after omniscience, while the Shvetambara set is a group of abstract signs.
↳ What does the Jain swastika mean?
The four bent arms are the four gatis, the four kinds of birth a soul takes: heavenly, human, animal or plant, and hellish. The three dots drawn above them are right faith, right knowledge and right conduct, the three jewels. The crescent above the dots is the siddhashila at the top of the universe, and the single dot above the crescent is the liberated soul. Read from the bottom upward, the figure is a diagram of rebirth and of the way out of it, which is why calling it a good luck sign misses the point entirely.
↳ Is the Jain swastika the same as the Nazi symbol?
No. The svastika appears on Indus Valley seals in the third millennium BCE and independently across Europe and East Asia, and it has been in continuous Jain, Hindu and Buddhist use for over two thousand years. The German National Socialist party adopted a version of the figure as its emblem in 1920 under the separate German name Hakenkreuz, hooked cross. That is a distinct sign with a distinct meaning and a history about a century long. One practical point: public display of the Nazi emblem is restricted by law in Germany and several other European countries, and the law does not always distinguish the two, so a Jain family living there should know the local position.
↳ Do the ashtamangala protect the home or bring good fortune?
No, and no Jain source claims they do. Jainism has no creator, no judge and no intervening deity, and karma is bound and shed only by the soul's own activity. A mangala is something whose presence sets the mind rightly at the beginning of an act, not something that acts on the person who displays it. The symbol works on the person looking at it, or it does nothing. Popular usage sometimes treats these figures as charms; that usage is real and widespread, and it is not what the tradition teaches.
↳ Why is rice used to draw the svastika?
The rice used is akshat, whole husked grains, and two reasons are given. The practical one is that husked rice cannot germinate, so it is not a living seed and no life is at stake in the offering. The devotional one is a play on the word: akshat is close to akshaya, imperishable, and the offering is read as a request for the imperishable state, which is liberation. Both readings are standard and they do not conflict.
↳ Are the Jain and Buddhist ashtamangala the same list?
They are separate lists that overlap in a few items. The Tibetan Buddhist eight auspicious signs include the endless knot, the conch, the parasol, the lotus, the wheel, the victory banner, the treasure vase and the golden fish. The Jain lists share the pot, the parasol in the Digambara set, and a fish motif, because both traditions draw on a common older Indian stock of auspicious figures rather than from each other. Reference articles that merge the two tables produce a list belonging to neither tradition.
Related
- Jain Symbols Explained: the whole section
- The Jain flag: five colours and what they stand for
- The 24 lanchhanas, emblem by emblem
- The ghar derasar, and the home without one
- Navkar Mantra: five salutations that ask for nothing
- Suparshvanatha, whose lanchhana is the svastika
Sources. The Shvetambara list of eight and the Digambara list are as given in the standard reference literature on Jain iconography; the Digambara enumeration varies between sources, with the vardhamanaka appearing in place of the jhari in some, and that variation is reported rather than resolved. The identification of the Digambara eight as items drawn largely from the ashta-pratiharya is an observation about the two lists, offered as such. The interpretations given for each individual symbol come from the commentarial and iconographic literature and are not canonical; they vary between sources, and the page says so. The svastika read as the four gatis with the three jewels, the siddhashila and the liberated soul above it is the standard gloss taught in lay practice. Suparshvanatha "marked with a svastika" at birth is from Hemachandra's Trishashti-Shalaka-Purusha-Charitra, Johnson's translation. The nandavarta and shrivatsa cross-assignments follow the sourcing already set out on our Aranatha and Shitalanatha pages. The Mathura ayagapatas are dated by museum and archaeological catalogues to around the turn of the Common Era. The Indus Valley attestation of the svastika and its independent occurrence outside India are standard archaeological findings. The adoption of the figure by the German National Socialist party in 1920 and the German term Hakenkreuz are plain historical record, and the note about display restrictions is practical information rather than a legal opinion. That karma is bound and shed by the soul's own activity follows the Tattvartha Sutra. We have deliberately printed no claim about Jain wealth, trade or tax contribution, because the figures circulating for those are unsourced. Corrections are seva: tell us.