Jirawala Parshvanatha

A Parshvanatha shrine in the Aravallis invoked by name at the opening of Svetambara ritual across western India.

Tradition places the temple’s founding around the third century, prompted by what accounts call divine signs, and holds that the principal image was recovered from a cave near the site rather than carved for it. The shrine was an active pilgrimage and scholarly centre for the better part of a millennium, drawing the patronage of a succession of Svetambara acharyas between roughly the sixth and fourteenth centuries.

Alongside the white marble Parshvanatha in padmasana at the centre, the temple carries a set of 108 further Parshvanatha images, each given one of his traditional 108 names — a form some other Parshvanatha shrines echo but few carry in full.

Written for Jain Times. Corrections are welcome — see sources and licences.