Shri Ajitnath: life and stories
Following the Shwetambar tradition, chiefly Acharya Shri Hemchandracharya's Trishashti Shalaka Purush Charitra. Kalyanak tithis are in Gujarati months.
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In the east Mahavideh of Jambudweep, in the city of Susima, ruled King Vimalvahan. Though he had everything, he saw that worldly happiness does not last. He took diksha under Acharya Arindam and, through the aradhana of the twenty sthanak, bound the Tirthankar naam karma.
At the end of that life he was born as a dev in Vijay, the first of the five anuttar vimans, from where he came down for his last birth.
On Vaishakh Sud 13 his soul came into the womb of Queen Vijaya, wife of King Jitshatru of Ayodhya, a descendant of Rishabhdev. She saw the fourteen great dreams. Long ages had passed since the first Tirthankar: fifty lakh crore sagaropam.
While the Prabhu was in the womb, King Jitshatru could not once defeat Queen Vijaya at dice, though he had always won before. So the child was named Ajit, the unconquered. His chinh is the elephant.
He was born on Maha Sud 8, and the Indras celebrated the janmabhishek on Meru. In the same family his uncle Sumitra had a son, Sagar, born to become the second chakravarti; the two cousins grew up together. Ajit ruled Ayodhya as king, with Sagar as heir.
After the Lokantik devs came to request him, and a year of varshidaan, he handed the kingdom to Sagar and on Maha Sud 9 took diksha in Ayodhya with a thousand kings.
After twelve years of silent sadhana he attained kevalgyan on Posh Sud 11. The devs built the samavasaran, Sinhasen became the first of his ninety-five ganadhars, and the fourfold sangh was set up again.
The Shwetambar tradition holds that in Ajitnath's time the greatest number of Tirthankars ever were present together in the human world: a hundred and seventy, across the five Bharat, five Airavat and the vijays of the five Mahavideh. The stotras that praise the 170 Jin recall this time.
Sagar conquered the six parts of Bharat kshetra with the chakra ratna and became the second chakravarti. He had sixty thousand sons, led by Jahnukumar.
On a pilgrimage, the sons saw the jinalaya Bharat had built on Ashtapad. To protect it from the greed of later ages, they dug a deep trench around the mountain and, with the danda ratna, brought the river Ganga to fill it. The water flooded the homes of the Nagkumar devs below, and their king Jvalanprabh, in anger, burnt all sixty thousand sons to ashes.
Jahnu's son Bhagirath calmed the Nagkumar devs with humility, and led the Ganga on to the eastern sea so that it would harm no one again. The tradition sees here the source of the saying "a Bhagirath effort".
Before the news reached him, Indra came to Sagar disguised as a grieving Brahmin and made him reflect that death spares no one. When Sagar heard of his sons, that reflection held him steady. He made Bhagirath king, took diksha from Ajitnath Bhagwan, and in time attained kevalgyan and moksha.
On Chaitra Sud 5 Ajitnath Bhagwan attained nirvan on Sammet Shikhar with a thousand munis. He was the first of the twenty Tirthankars of this age to attain moksha on Sammet Shikhar.
Near Kalri, on the Taranga hills, stands the great temple of Ajitnath Bhagwan built by King Kumarpal on the advice of Acharya Hemchandracharya in the twelfth century, one of the finest Solanki temples.
In the Ajit Shanti stav, recited in pakshik, chaumasi and samvatsari pratikraman, Ajitnath is praised together with Shantinath Bhagwan, the moolnayak of Kalri.