Tirthankara Finder: By Emblem, Colour, Birthplace or Nirvana

Choose an emblem, a colour, a birthplace or a place of nirvana, or type a name or a number, and this tool lists every Tirthankara that fits, linked to his page. It searches the facts on our own 24 Tirthankara pages. Jain images of the 24 Tirthankaras are made deliberately alike, so the emblem under the image, its colour and the stories of birth and nirvana are how one Jina is told from another.

Twenty of the twenty-four attained nirvana at Sammed Shikharji, and five were born at Ayodhya, so a choice of either gives a long list; combine it with an emblem or a colour to narrow it.

How it works

The table behind the tool is taken from the fact box at the top of each Tirthankara page: lanchhana, complexion, birthplace, place of nirvana, birth star and rashi. Those pages follow Hemachandra’s Trishashti-Shalaka-Purusha-Charitra in Johnson’s translation, with the Kalpasutra for the lives it covers, and each states its own sources. The Digambara emblems come from the table on our page on the 24 lanchhanas, and the Digambara birth stars from the birth stars of the 24 Tirthankaras. We checked every value in the tool against those pages.

You can combine choices. An emblem matches either tradition’s reading, so choosing the nandavarta gives Aranatha (Shvetambara) and Suparshvanatha (Digambara).

Reading the result

The first line names the matches. The table gives, for each, the number in the sequence of this avasarpini, the emblem with the Digambara one below it where it differs (and, for Sumatinatha, a note on how krauncha is translated), the colour, the birthplace, the place of nirvana (linked to our tirth guide where we have one) and the birth star with its rashi. Each name opens the full life.

Where traditions differ

• Emblems. Our lanchhana page sets out four entries where generic lists disagree with ours: Sumatinatha’s krauncha bird (a translation question), and Shitalanatha, Anantanatha and Aranatha, where Digambara lists give a kalpavriksha, a porcupine or bear, and a fish, and assign the nandavarta to Suparshvanatha. We show both readings and choose neither. The krauncha is a different case: the crane or koka-bird of Digambara sources is the same word translated, so the tool shows it as a note under the krauncha, not as a second emblem.
• Colour. Most of the twenty-four are traditionally golden. Our pages give white for Chandraprabha and Suvidhinatha, red for Padmaprabha and Vasupujya, black for Munisuvrata and Neminatha, blue for Mallinatha and green for Parshvanatha. For Suparshvanatha, Hemachandra gives golden and some other lists give green. Rishabhanatha’s page has no colour line; we show golden, as the lanchhana page counts him among the golden ones and his page quotes Hemachandra on his “golden shoulders”.
• Birth stars. For Sambhavanatha, Vasupujya and Dharmanatha the Digambara reading differs, and both are shown.
• Mallinatha. In the Shvetambara tradition the nineteenth Tirthankara is a woman; the Digambara tradition holds that all twenty-four were men.

What it does not do

It does not identify a photograph or a physical image for you, and it does not cover the yakshas and yakshis or the iconographic tests (serpent hoods, locks on the shoulders) that help when the pedestal is broken; the lanchhana page explains those. It makes no claim about what an emblem does: a lanchhana is a mark of identity, not a charm.

Frequently asked questions