Bharata, Bahubali, and the Sons

Jain narrative surrounds Rishabha with a large family whose stories carry much of the tradition's early meaning. His son Bharata is remembered as the first chakravartin, the universal emperor of the age, and one account derives the very name of the land, Bharata, India, from him.

Another son, Bahubali, is the subject of one of Jainism's most beloved episodes and its most striking monument. Having contested sovereignty with his brother Bharata and won, Bahubali is said to have recoiled from the victory, renounced the world, and stood in motionless meditation so long that vines grew up his limbs, attaining liberation through the final surrender of pride. His figure is carved in the colossal fifty-seven-foot monolith of Gommateshvara at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, bathed every twelve years in the great Mahamastakabhisheka ceremony, and it remains one of the tradition's foremost pilgrimage images. Rishabha's own breaking of a long fast with a gift of sugarcane juice is commemorated by Jains at Akshaya Tritiya.