Figures
Pushpadanta
Also Known As Suvidhinatha · Suvidhinath (Hindi) Hindi form of Suvidhinatha, the second name of the ninth Tirthankara.
Tirthankaras
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Pushpadanta, also called Suvidhinatha, is the ninth Tirthankara of Jainism, venerated as a liberated soul and omniscient teacher; his emblem is the makara (a crocodile-like water creature). He is honoured among the twenty-four ford-makers of the present age who revealed the path to liberation.
Facts
Identity
PositionNinth of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the present half-cycle 1Tradition: Jainism The sequence of twenty-four is fixed and identical in the Digambara and Svetambara canons. SymbolCrab 1Tradition: Digambara The lanchana as the Digambara tradition gives it, differing from the Svetambara emblem recorded beside it. SymbolCrocodile, the makara 1Tradition: Svetambara The lanchana, the emblem carved beneath the figure on images and shrines. The two traditions give different emblems for this Tirthankara; both are recorded. Attestation
HistoricityLegendary: known from narrative tradition, not the historical record 1 Earlier Tirthankaras belong to the cosmological scheme, not to history. Critical scholarship accepts only Parshvanatha and Mahavira as historical. Jainism holds all 24 Tirthankaras of this half-cycle to be historical teachers Traditions Revering This Figure Life
Manner of DeathAttained liberation (moksha) 3Tradition: Jainism Position Profile
Key TextThe Kalpa Sutra's Jina-caritra section is the traditional Svetambara account of his life and lineage as the ninth Tirthankara of the present age. 4 Origins
Place of OriginKakandi, as Jain tradition places him 3 Practice
LineageJain tradition names his father as King Sugriva and his mother as Queen Rama of Kakandi, and he is counted as the ninth of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, roughly midway through the line of ford-makers the tradition holds for the present cosmic age. 1 Veneration
Shrine or Burial PlaceJain tradition holds that he attained final liberation, moksha, atop Sammeta Shikharji (Parasnath Hill) in present day Jharkhand, the site honored as the liberation place of most Tirthankaras. 1 Learn More
The Ninth Ford-Maker
Pushpadanta, also called Suvidhinatha, is the ninth Tirthankara of the present age, and one of the ford-makers known by two names in the tradition. His emblem is the makara, a crocodile-like water creature of Indian iconography. He is venerated as a liberated soul and omniscient teacher among the twenty-four ford-makers who reveal the path to liberation.
Jain tradition assigns him a place in the remote sacred antiquity of the avasarpini, before documented history, and holds that he attained final liberation at Sammeta Shikhar (Shikharji). Beyond his two names, his emblem, and the shared framework of the five auspicious life-events, the sources preserve little narrative particular to him.
The double naming, Pushpadanta in some texts and Suvidhinatha in others, is not unique to him: several Tirthankaras carry more than one traditional name across the Svetambara and Digambara canons, a variation the tradition treats as a difference of usage rather than a disputed identity. His makara emblem, a composite water-creature of Indian iconography combining features of crocodile, fish and elephant, belongs to a set of animal and object emblems that Jain art uses specifically to distinguish otherwise near-identical seated or standing images of the twenty-four ford-makers from one another.
Known Nearly as Much by a Second Name as by the First
Pushpadanta is also recorded in Jain tradition under an alternative name, Suvidhinatha, with sources using the two more or less interchangeably for the same ninth Tirthankara, a detail that reflects the layered textual history behind these figures rather than any confusion about which individual is meant. Variant naming of this kind recurs across the earlier Tirthankaras and is generally explained by scholars as a byproduct of the tradition drawing on more than one line of textual transmission over a very long period, with different regional or sectarian streams settling on slightly different preferred names for the same cosmological figure before later compilers, most importantly Hemachandra in his twelfth century compendium of the tradition's major figures, brought the material together and preserved both names side by side rather than eliminating one.
As with the other Tirthankaras earlier than Parshvanatha and Mahavira, Pushpadanta's place in the vast cyclical chronology of Jain cosmology puts him outside the range historians can independently test, so questions about his story tend to concern how the tradition itself preserved and transmitted his name and emblem across centuries of compilation, rather than questions that could be resolved by external historical evidence.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Pushpadanta directly: "Satkhandagama, attributed to Pushpadanta and Bhutabali, is the earliest surviving Digambara Jain canonical text, conventionally placed in the second century CE."
This source names Pushpadanta directly: "to the ancient Digambara Jain teachers Pushpadanta and Bhutabali, is a primary source of the first order, one of the oldest and most important canonical texts of Digambara Jainism, systematically..."
Belongs to Tradition
Instance Of
Number 9 of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the present half-cycle.
Succeeded By
Shitalanatha follows Pushpadanta in the sequence of twenty-four, at position 10.
Successor Of
Pushpadanta follows Chandraprabha in the sequence of twenty-four, at position 9.
Sources
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