कुंथुनाथ
Kunthunatha
The seventeenth Tirthankara.
The seventeenth Tirthankara, born at Hastinapur — the third of three consecutive Tirthankaras born there, after Shantinatha and before Aranatha, which is why Hastinapur carries the weight it does as a pilgrimage site.
Those same three are the only figures in the tradition recorded as having been Chakravartin, Kamadeva and Tirthankara: universal emperor, ideal man, and ford-maker. The point of recording it is the renunciation — each is said to have held sovereignty over the whole world and then left it, which is the strongest form the tradition has of its central claim about what is worth having.
The goat is his emblem. He attained nirvana at Shikharji.
This figure is known from tradition; there is no independent historical evidence. That is a statement about the record, not about the tradition.
Written for Jain Times. Corrections are welcome — see sources and licences.