Article: Emblems of the 24 Jinas

Image of a Jina
Image by British Library © CC0 1.0 (Creative Commons Public Domain)

In works of art Jinas are usually very hard to tell apart because they are depicted in a very idealised style. Thus the individual emblems are crucial to identifying a Jina.

Even so, one Jina is easy to recognise. The 23rd Jina, Pārsvanātha or Lord Pārsva, is usually depicted wearing a snake-hood. The number of snake-hoods he wears varies between seven and nine, although seven is the most common number.

There are also specific identifying signs for the first Jina, Ṛṣabhanātha or Lord Ṛṣabha, and the seventh one, Supārśvanātha or Lord Supārśva. Ṛṣabha has long locks of hair falling on his shoulders while Supārśva has snake-hoods above the head, smaller than those of Pārsva.

Mallinātha or Lord Malli, the 19th Jina, is problematic, because she is considered to be a woman in the Śvetāmbara tradition.

In addition, sometimes a Jina’s body is painted in his individual colour, which can help in identifying him. Some variations are due to the fact that the Indian word nīla refers to ‘dark’, which can mean dark blue or black, or sometimes even green.

Emblem of Śreyāṃsa
Image by Nalini Balbir © Nalini Balbir

A Jina is always shown in meditation in one of two positions. He commonly stands in the kāyotsarga posture of ‘rejection of the body’, which indicates that he is so deep in meditation he is indifferent to his surroundings. The other main meditation pose in which Jinas are shown is the lotus position.

A Jina in art may also have a kind of tilaka on his forehead and an endless knot on his chest.

Among the Śvetāmbaras, the Jina is thought of as a spiritual king and is often depicted with ornaments and pictured seated on a throne. Otherwise he wears only a loincloth or perhaps the simple white robe of a monk.

In the Digambara Jain tradition, the Jinas are always represented entirely naked and without any ornamentation.

There are also small differences in the emblem of a Jina between the two sects. The emblem of an individual Jina can usually be seen on the cloth on which he sits, on the foot of his throne or in a corner of the pedestal on which he stands. It is commonly quite small.

Adapted from the table ‘Tirthankaras’ Cognizances’ on page 247, Appendix of Historical Dictionary of Jainism. Kristi L. Wiley. The Scarecrow Press, Inc.. Lanham, Maryland. 2004.

In art the emblems do not appear before the 5th century CE. In texts the full lists are even later, showing that there might have been a considerable gap between this concept’s starting to appear and the time it was codified. The standard list of the Śvetāmbaras is found in the Abhidhānacintāmaṇi, a dictionary of synonyms written by Hemacandra in the 12th century. The Digambaras often refer to the list in the Tiloyapannatti, one of their treatises on the Jain universe written in Prakrit. They give the fairly early date of the 6th century to this work, but this is a matter of controversy.