Shri Shantinath: life and stories
Following the Shwetambar tradition, chiefly Acharya Shri Hemchandracharya's Trishashti Shalaka Purush Charitra and the Kalpasutra. Kalyanak tithis are in Gujarati months.
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In his tenth birth before the last he was King Megharath. One day a frightened pigeon fell into his lap, chased by a hawk. The hawk demanded its prey: it too had to eat. The king offered his own flesh in place of the pigeon, and had scales brought. However much flesh he cut, the pigeon's side stayed heavier, until the king sat on the scale himself. The pigeon and the hawk were devs who had come to test the compassion Indra had praised; they bowed to him. In that life he bound the Tirthankar naam karma, and after a life in Sarvarthasiddh he came down as Shantinath.
On Shravan Vad 7 his soul came into the womb of Queen Achira, wife of King Vishvasen of Hastinapur, and she saw the fourteen great dreams.
A deadly epidemic was raging in Hastinapur when the Prabhu came into the womb, and it ended at once; peace (shanti) returned to the city. So the child was named Shanti, and to this day his name is taken for peace in times of illness and fear. His chinh is the deer.
He was born on Vaishakh Vad 13, and the Indras celebrated the janmabhishek on Meru.
Shantinath was both the fifth chakravarti, ruling the six parts of Bharat, and the sixteenth Tirthankar: the first in this age to hold both titles in one life.
After the Lokantik devs came to request him and a year of varshidaan, he took diksha on Vaishakh Vad 14 with a thousand kings.
He attained kevalgyan on Posh Sud 9; the devs built the samavasaran and the fourfold sangh was set up.
On Vaishakh Vad 13 Shri Shantinath attained nirvan on Sammet Shikhar.
Shri Shantinath Dada is the moolnayak of Shree Kalri Jain Tirth, in white marble, worshipped here for about 160 years. The stotras of peace, Santikaram, Moti Shanti and Ajit Shanti, are sung in his praise.