शांतिनाथ
Shantinatha
The sixteenth Tirthankara. His name means "peace", and he is widely invoked for it.
The sixteenth Tirthankara, and one of the most widely invoked. His name means peace, and the tradition attaches it to a story: he is said to have been born during an epidemic, which ended at his birth.
He is one of the figures counted in tradition as both a chakravartin — a universal emperor — and a Tirthankara, having held sovereignty over the whole of the known world before renouncing it. The pairing is the point. A tradition built on renunciation reserves particular weight for those who had the most to renounce.
Temples to Shantinatha are among the most numerous, and his image is commonly the one people sit before when asking for calm.
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.