नमिनाथ
Naminatha
The twenty-first Tirthankara.
The twenty-first Tirthankara, born at Mithila, the same city as Mallinatha before him — Mithila, on the present India–Nepal border, being a birthplace in both the Jain and the wider Indian traditions.
The name is read as the one bowed to, from nam, to bow. He is not the Nami of the Uttaradhyayana Sutra, a king who renounced after seeing his own city burn and whose dialogue with Indra is one of the best-known passages in the Svetambara canon; the names coincide and the figures do not.
The blue lotus is his emblem. He attained nirvana at Shikharji.
Tradition preserves the name, the emblem, the places and the position in the sequence for every Tirthankara, but distinctive narrative for only a handful. For this figure there is little beyond what is above — and saying so is more useful than three invented paragraphs. Where a well-sourced account exists that we have missed, we would like to hear about it.
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.