Shikharji

About

Shikharji, also known as Sammet Shikhar or Sammed Shikharji, rises upon Parasnath hill in the Giridih district of Jharkhand and is venerated as the most important pilgrimage destination in the Jain dharma. The name means the venerable peak, and the parallel form Sammed Shikhar carries the sense of the peak of concentration.

Upon this height twenty of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, supreme teachers of dharma, are believed to have attained Moksha through deep meditation, accompanied by countless ascetics and monks who likewise reached liberation here. Among them was the twenty-third Tirthankara, Bhagavan Parshvanatha, from whose name the alternate designation Parasnath is drawn, said to have attained Moksha at the summit around 772 BCE.

Both the Digambara and Shvetambara traditions hold Shikharji in singular reverence, and it is counted as one of the seven principal pilgrimage destinations of Jainism alongside Girnar, Pawapuri, Champapuri, Dilwara, Palitana and Ashtapad Kailash.

The sacred hill rises to roughly 1,370 metres above the Jharkhand plains, and pilgrims undertake a long ascending circumambulation that touches a series of tonks, small shrines marking the precise spots of each Tirthankara's nirvana. The traditional pilgrimage is performed barefoot, in silence and fasting, as an act of profound respect for the beings who attained liberation here.

History

Archaeological evidence places a Jain presence in the region as far back as 1500 BCE, and the earliest literary reference to Shikharji as a tirtha is found in the Jnatridharmakatha, one of the twelve core Agamas compiled in the sixth century BCE by the chief disciple of Bhagavan Mahavira. The mountain reappears in the twelfth-century Parshvanatha Charita and in a thirteenth-century palm-leaf manuscript of the Kalpa Sutra that depicts Parshvanatha's nirvana upon its slopes. Through medieval and modern centuries Jain communities have maintained the tonks, the pilgrim paths and the temples at the foot of the hill, preserving an unbroken tradition of ascent.

Significance

Shikharji is honoured as the holiest place of liberation on earth in the Jain tradition, where twenty Tirthankaras crossed beyond the cycle of birth and death. To set foot upon Parasnath hill and perform its meditative circumambulation is regarded by Jains as among the most meritorious of all pilgrimages, integrating remembrance of the great teachers with the aspirant's own resolve toward Moksha.