Jain Legend Vol 1

Author(s): Hastimal Maharaj, Shuganchand Jain, P S Surana
Publisher: Hastimal Maharaj Shugan C Jain P S Surana

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Mah v ra's times. He secured T rthamkaragotra through service to the royalty. On account of his previous ungainly karmas he shall first experience hell. He made every effort to break from the confinement in hell but in vain. Lastly he understood that his going to hell was inevitable.
T rthamkara and the N tha Sect
Apart from Jain literature reference to T rthamkara can also be found in Vedas, Puras, etc, Vedic and Buddhist texts such as Tripi aka, etc. But there we only find V abhan tha, Sambhava, Sup r va, Ari anemi, etc but not the T rthamkara with the n tha suffix. The same situation exists in Samay y mga, va yaka and Nand s tra. In this context it would be natural to ask since when and with what connotation was the suffix 'n tha' used with names of T rthamkara.
Literal meaning of n tha is 'Lord'. Each T rthamkara is the Lord of three worlds and enriched with great qualities.Hence it seems apt and appropriate to use the suffix ‘n tha' with their names. Prabhu, N tha, Deva, Sw m, etc are synonymous terms, so the terms Deva, N tha, Prabhu, and Sw m have been suffixed to the names of T rthamkara. For the first time in the Bhagavat S tra, Lord Mah v ra, and in va yaka S tra the arihantas have been invoked with the adjectives "logan he am”, “logan h am”, considering them to be Lord of the world, lokan tha. Digambara crya of the period of around 4h century AD, crya Yativ abha, in his text, Tiloyapa att used the term 'n tha' with the T rthamkara at several places. He also used the term “ sara", " m" with the names of T rthamkara. This certainly and indisputably goes to show that by the time of Yativ abha the term 'n tha' was used for T rthamkara in literature. The term ‘n tha’ for Jain T rthamkara became so popular that aiva Yog started using the term ‘n tha' with his name and as a result, Matsyendran tha, Gorakhan tha, etc which was part of this tradition became popular as the "n tha sect”.
Those from other communities who are totally unaware of the history and importance of T rthamkara such as din tha, Ajitan tha, etc can get into the misperception that Gorakhan tha gave rise to Neman tha, Neman tha and P r van tha gave rise to Gorakhapamth. Fact is, that Matsyendran tha who is considered the founder of the N tha sect, is
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