Tirthankara Images

Tirthankara Images gathers painted and sculpted depictions of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of Jainism, the saviour-teachers who are venerated as having conquered the endless cycle of birth and death, samsara, entirely through their own effort and who are honored for establishing a tirtha, a passage across that cycle, for others to follow toward liberation, moksha. Jain devotional art across sculpture, manuscript illumination and metalwork repeats a small set of iconographic conventions for identifying each Tirthankara, including a seated or standing meditative posture and a distinguishing emblem unique to each teacher. This group anchors six works held in this atlas depicting named Tirthankaras, among them Neminatha, Chandraprabha, Kunthunatha, Suparsvanatha, Rishabhanatha and Parshvanatha, objects that functioned as focal points of worship in Jain temples and private shrines across the tradition's long history.