CHENNAI: Karanthai, a remote village in Tiruvannamalai district, on Sunday celebrated the attainment of absolute knowledge by Kunthunath, the 17th Tirthankara of Jainism.
It was the fourth day of ‘Pancha Kalyana’, a traditional Jain ritual in which five stages in the life of a Tirthankara are celebrated across five days.
The events include conception, birth, renunciation, enlightenment and liberation. The five-day event is a celebration of the basic principles of Jainism. “We are living in a mechanized world. People are becoming selfish due to lack of interaction and knowledge. The five-day event shows how one should follow the basic principles of life in a simple way. Each day’s celebration is aimed at creating awareness about the fragility of the materialistic world that we all live in,” said K Ajithadoss, a Jain scholar.
While Adinatha (first Tirthankara) and Mahavira (the 24th and last Tirthankara) are the main deities in most of the Jain temples in Tamil Nadu, only a couple of temples have Kunthunath as the main deity.
The fifth and final day will have a big event. “In the last day the event, Tirthankara gets liberation. And it’s considered as one of the most important stage of one’s life,” Ajithadoss sai