Tirtha (Jainism)

This article is about the Jainism term. For other uses, see Tirtha (disambiguation).

In Jainism, a tīrtha (Sanskrit: तीर्थ "ford, a shallow part of a body of water that may be easily crossed") is a passage across samsara first blazed by a Tirthankara. The word is used to refer to Jain pilgrimage sites, and to the four sections of the sangha. A tirtha provides the inspiration to enable one to cross over from worldly engagement to the side of moksha.

Jain tirthas are located throughout India. Often a tirtha has a number of temples as well as residences (dharmashala) for the pilgrims and wandering monks and scholars.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.