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Neminatha

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Neminatha

Neminātha (Devanagari: नेमिनाथ) (Sanskrit: नेमिनाथः), also known as Nemi and Ariṣṭanemi (Devanagari: अरिष्टनेमि), is the twenty-second tirthankara of Jainism in the present age (Avasarpini). Neminath lived 84,000 years before the 23rd Tirthankar Parshvanath. According to traditional accounts, he was born to King Samudravijaya and Queen Shivadevi of the Yadu dynasty in the north Indian city of Sauripura. His birth date was the fifth day of Shravan Shukla of the Jain calendar. Balarama and Krishna, who were the 9th and last Baladeva and Vasudeva respectively, were his first cousins.

Neminatha, when heard the cries of animals being killed for his marriage feast, freed the animals and renounced his worldly life and became a Jain ascetic. The representatives of this event are popular in Jain art. He had attained moksha on Girnar Hills near Junagadh, and became a siddha, a liberated soul which has destroyed all of its karma.

Along with Mahavira, Parshvanatha and Rishabhanatha, Neminath is one of the twenty-four Tirthankars who attract the most devotional worship among the Jains. His icons include the eponymous deer as his emblem, the Mahavenu tree, Sarvanha (Digambara) or Gomedha (Śhvētāmbara) Yaksha, and Ambika Yakshi.

The name Neminatha consists of two Sanskrit words, Nemi which means "rim, felly of a wheel" or alternatively "thunderbolt", and natha which means "lord, patron, protector".

According to the Jain text Uttarapurana, as well as the explanation of Acharya Hemchandra, it was the ancient Indian deity Indra who named the 22nd tirthankara as Neminatha, because he viewed the Jina as the "rim of the wheel of dharma".

In Śvetāmbara Jain texts, his name Aristanemi came from a dream his mother had during pregnancy, where she saw a "wheel of Arista jewels". His full name is mentioned as Aristanemi which is an epithet of the sun-chariot. Neminatha's name is spelled close to the 21st tirthankara Naminatha.

Neminatha was the twenty-second Tirthankara (ford-maker) of the avasarpiṇī (present descending cycle of Jain cosmology). Jain tradition place him as a contemporary of Krishna, the ninth and last vasudev. There was a gap of 581,750 years between the Neminatha and his predecessor, Naminatha as per traditional beliefs. He lived approx. 81,000 years before the 23rd Tirthankara, Parshvanatha as per the Trishashtishalakapursusha Charitra of Acharya Hemachandra.

Neminatha is mentioned as the youngest son of king Samudravijaya and queen Shivadevi of the Yadu lineage, born at Sauripura (Dvaraka). He is believed to have become fond of animals in his early life due to being in a cattle-herding family. Jain legends place him in the Girnar-Kathiawad (in Saurashtra region of modern-day Gujarat). His birth date is believed to be the fifth day of Shravana Shukla of the Hindu calendar.

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