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Neminath Swami is our Twenty Second Tirthankar of present life cycle Avsarpani. Neminath in his earlier life was Shankh who was the eldest son of King Shrisen of Hastinapur kingdom . Once learning that there were some bandits terrorising the people in the highways, the King requested Shankh to go and punish them. Prince Shankh was a clever strategist and without bloodshed he succeeded in apprehending them. On his way he rescued a princess in difficulties and married her. In course of time he became the King. One day an ascetic came to the Kingdom and King Shankh asked him why he had felt attracted to the princess inspite of having the feeling of renunciation. The ascetic replied that she had been his wife in the last six births and this was the seventh one which was the reason for the intense attraction. The scholarly ascetic assured him that he would be free of the attraction in his ninth incarnation as Tirthankar Neminath and his wife too would get liberated at that time. Years passed and the King handed over his kingdom to him. King Shankh ruled for a number of years but soon felt a deep sense of detachment. He gave up his Kingdom and became an ascetic. He then reincarnated in the Aprajit dimension of the Gods. Due to his penances of earlier lifetimes, he had attained a very exalted level of enlightenment due to which his soul now descended into the womb of Queen Shiva Devi who was the wife of King Samudravijay of Sauripur kingdom. The Queen witnessed fourteen dreams which are the signs of the advent of the birth of a Tirthankar which are dreamed by every tirthankar's mother.
On the fifth day of the bright half of the month of Shravan the Queen gave birth to a son and he was named Neminath. The younger brother of King Samudravijay was Vasudev whose senior Queen Rohini had a son named Balram and junior Queen Devaki had a son named Shri Krishna. Balram and Shri Krishna were said to be the ninth Baldev and Vasudev in Jain philosophy. Jarasandha was the Prativasudev and he and Kansa were cruelly oppressing everyone in the kingdom. Therefore the Yadava clan migrated from Mathura to Dwaraka which was constructed by Shri Krishna near the Girnar Mountain. One day, it is said that while playing, Neminath lifted the Panchajanya conch and blew on it and he also lifted the divine discus Sudarshan Chakra. Shri Krishna heard the sound of the conch and was stunned as they were beyond the capacity and strength of any warrior in the world. To test his prowers he challenged Nemi to a bout in the gymnasium but to his surprise he found that his cousin Nemi not only had unprecedented strength but a total attitude of detachment to worldly activities. Thinking that he would make a good Chakravarti he then persuaded him to get married. Shri Krishna then began looking for suitable alliances. His wife Sathyabhama informed him about her beautiful sister Rajul(Rajimati) who was considered eminently suitable by all and the marriage was fixed. On the wedding day, Prince Neminath was riding an elephant and proceeding towards the marriage hall when he saw cages of animals and birds. Then he asked one of his soldier why this animals are tied up and are crying then the soldier/ rath sathi informed him that the animals and birds are maent to be feast for their wedding. And then he realised they were meant as feast for the wedding, a deep sense of despair and detachment came over him. He ordered for release of all of them and the marriage procession to return to Dwarka and cancelled the wedding. On the way he took off all his valuables and ornaments.
All the elders including Shri Krishna tried to dissuade him but he declared that humans too were bound by their fetters just like the animals in the cages and the happiness when they were released was similar to the liberation that man would achieve on breaking the worldly bondage. On the sixth day of the bright half of the month of Shravan according to the Jain calendar he embraced ascetism along with a number of members of the royal family and his followers. Shri Krishna too was deeply touched by the incident and blessed his cousin in his mission. After a number of days of deep spiritual penances he achieved Omniscience on the fifteenth day of the dark half of the month of Ashwin while meditating under a Bamboo tree.
He then established the four pronged religious organisation(Tirth) of Sadhus, Sadhvi, Shravaks and Shravikas(monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen). He attained Nirvana on the eighth day of the bright half of the month of Ashadh according to Jain calender on Girnar. Rajul his intended bride too took Diksha and after rigorous spiritual penances got liberated.
