Sravasti

Better known as a Buddhist site, and in the Jain account the birthplace of Sambhavanatha, the third Tirthankara.

Shravasti’s fame runs through Buddhist history far more than Jain — it was where the Buddha is said to have spent the greatest number of rainy-season retreats of his teaching life, and the archaeological site, walled and dated to around the third century BCE, was identified by Alexander Cunningham in 1863 largely for that reason. The Jain claim on the same city sits alongside that history rather than competing with it: continuous religious and urban activity here, across Buddhist, Hindu and Jain building, is attested from the Buddha’s own era through at least the twelfth century.

The Jain tradition holds Shravasti as the birthplace of Sambhavanatha, third of the Tirthankaras, born there to King Jitari and Queen Susena of the Ikshvaku line. The ruined Shobhnath temple within the wider archaeological site is generally identified, by historians and pilgrims alike, as marking the place.

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