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Jaina Iconography
of antilopes between a wheel. The attendant spirits occupy the recesses of the lowest panel.'
Regarding the Jina's parentage, we gather from Jaina books that King Visvasena was his father and Acira was his mother. He was born at Hastinapura.
In Jaina history of pontiffs, Santinātha occupies a very high place. Not only did he revive Jainism, which was in danger of falling into oblivion, but he so consolidated the faith that it never disappeared again. Another extraordinary fact about him is that he was the first Tirthankara to become a Cakravarti or emperor of the whole of India. The occasion, which gave origin to his name, is that before Śantinātha's birth, his mother was able to stay the course of the pestilence which was raging in the kingdom by sprinkling the sufferers with Santi water. Hence, the name "Śantinatha" or 'Lord of Peace'.
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The symbol of a wheel flanked by two antilopes is exactly equivalent to the Buddhist symbol of the "Turning of the wheel of Law" at Sarnath. As we are informed that Santinātha revived the decadent Jainism, in other words, he preached anew the Jaina religion, it is evident, therefore, he invented or adopted the common symbol of a wheel and two deer. It may not be unlikely that men, in later times, in analogy to the Buddhist symbol of preaching, assigned to his image the "Dharina-Cakra"
emblem.
I. Vide a statue of Santinatha in the Fyzabad Museum, Arch: 1907-08 No. 52; another seated image of the Tirthamkara in the Jogin Ka Matha near Rohtak town, Arch. List No 2430. In Khajuraho, Chattarapur State, there is an image of Santinatha, 14 feet high; in Sirankala, near Lalitpur, Jhansi, there is a temple dedicated to the same Jina; Cf. B. 16. Catalogue of the Nagpur Museum, Mm 1 (Gupta Gallery) Anderson : Catalogue of the Ind. Mus., pp. 201, 215.
2. Heart of Jainism, p. 55. Cf.
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3. For the alternate rise and decline of Jainism refer to the following passage: "After the Nirvana of the ninth Tirthamkara Suvidhinatha, the Jaina faith disappeared until the birth of the tenth Tirthamkara, who revived it; on his Nirvana it disappeared again, but was revived on the birth of the cleventh; and this continued to be the case until the birth of Santinatha the Sixteenth Tirthamkara after which it never disappeared again". Heart of Jainism, P. 55.
