Figures

Kunthunatha

Also Known As Kunthunath (Hindi) Hindi form of the Sanskrit name.

Tirthankaras

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Kunthunatha." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/figures/kunthunatha.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Kunthunatha. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/figures/kunthunatha

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-kunthunatha,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Kunthunatha},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/figures/kunthunatha},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Kunthunatha is the seventeenth Tirthankara of Jainism, venerated as a liberated soul and omniscient teacher; his emblem is the goat. Like Shantinatha and Aranatha, he is counted in Jain tradition as both a Tirthankara and a chakravartin (universal emperor) who abandoned earthly dominion for the path of liberation.

Facts

Identity

Position

Seventeenth of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the present half-cycle 1Jainism

The sequence of twenty-four is fixed and identical in the Digambara and Svetambara canons.

Symbol

Goat 1Jainism

The lanchana, the emblem carved beneath the figure on images and shrines. Digambara and Svetambara give the same emblem here.

Gender

Male 1

Veneration

Shrine or Burial Place

Attained final liberation, moksha, atop Sammeta Shikharji (Parasnath Hill) in present day Jharkhand, the site honored as the liberation place of most tirthankaras and one of Jainism's most important pilgrimage destinations. 1

Attestation

Historicity

Legendary: 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

Jainism 1

Status

Status Within the Tradition

Counted as the seventeenth of the twenty-four Jain Tirthankaras of the present cosmic half-cycle, traditionally said to have also ruled as a chakravartin universal monarch before renouncing the throne to pursue spiritual liberation. 1

Origins

Place of Origin

Hastinapura, as Jain tradition places him 2

Life

Office Held

Jain tradition counts him not only a Tirthankara but a chakravartin, a universal emperor, who renounced his earthly dominion for the path of liberation. 1

Manner of Death

Attained liberation (moksha) 2Jainism

Position Profile

Key Text

The Kalpa Sutra's Jina-caritra section is the traditional Svetambara account of his life and lineage as the seventeenth Tirthankara of the present age. 3

Practice

Lineage

Jain tradition holds that as the seventeenth Tirthankara he was also, within the same lifetime, a chakravartin, a universal monarch ruling the entire known world, one of only a small number of Tirthankaras the tradition credits with achieving both spiritual and temporal sovereignty at once. 1

Learn More

The Seventeenth Ford-Maker

Kunthunatha is the seventeenth Tirthankara of the present age, venerated as a liberated soul and omniscient teacher. His emblem is the goat. Like Shantinatha before him and Aranatha after, he is counted in Jain tradition as both a Tirthankara and a chakravartin, a universal emperor who abandoned earthly dominion for the path of liberation, so that three ford-makers in unbroken sequence are remembered as having renounced world-sovereignty.

Tradition places him in the sacred antiquity of the avasarpini, before documented history, and holds that he attained final liberation at Sammeta Shikhar (Shikharji). Beyond his emblem, his dual status as ford-maker and emperor, and the traditional life-events, the sources preserve little narrative particular to him.

A chakravartin, in Jain cosmology, is a universal monarch said to rule all six continents of the traditional world-system by virtue of possessing fourteen precious jewels and nine treasures, a station of maximal worldly power that the tradition sets up specifically in order to be renounced. That Kunthunatha, Shantinatha and Aranatha occupy this station in unbroken sequence before turning to asceticism is presented in Jain texts as making their eventual renunciation a more pointed demonstration of dharma's claim over even the highest worldly achievement available.

Another Emperor Who Set Down His Crown

Kunthunatha, the seventeenth Tirthankara, is another of the small number of figures in the sequence credited by Jain tradition with having also held the exalted status of a Chakravartin, a universal ruler over the known world, before renouncing that position in favour of spiritual liberation, placing him alongside Shantinatha as an example of the tradition's recurring theme that the highest worldly power is itself something to be set aside on the path to liberation. This dual role, temporal sovereign and later spiritual teacher, gives Kunthunatha somewhat more developed narrative material within Jain hagiographic literature than figures who held only the Tirthankara role, since his story has to account for both a reign and a renunciation of that reign.

As with the broader sequence of Tirthankaras earlier than Parshvanatha and Mahavira, however, this material belongs to the internal cosmological chronology of Jain tradition, situated in an age far outside anything historians have independent means to verify, and scholars generally treat the Chakravartin narratives attached to figures like Kunthunatha as part of the tradition's doctrinal emphasis on renunciation's supreme value rather than as claims open to the kind of historical corroboration available for the tradition's latest and most firmly attested teacher.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Small Image of Kunthunatha, Brooklyn Museum (34.738)

This source names Kunthunatha directly: "own record for "Small Image of Kunthunatha, the Seventeenth Tirthankara," a brass sculpture from India, 17th to 18th century."

Source Small Image of Kunthunatha, Brooklyn Museum (34.738)