Sammed Shikhar (Parasnath Hill)

01Twenty nirvanas on one ridge

Of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, Rishabhadeva attained nirvana on Ashtapada, Vasupujya at Champa, Neminatha on Girnar and Mahavira at Pawapuri. The other twenty, Jain tradition says, all left the body on this hill. Each is remembered by a tonk, a small shrine holding the carved footprints of the Tirthankara, set on a rise of the ridge. The highest is the Swarnabhadra Kut of Parshvanatha, the twenty-third Tirthankara, whose nirvana Jains place in 777 BCE, two hundred and fifty years before Mahavira’s. The Kalpa Sutra tells his life, and the hill has carried his name in every language spoken round it.

02The night walk from Madhuban

The vandana starts at Madhuban, the temple town at the foot of the hill, long before light. Pilgrims walk barefoot up the forest path, about nine kilometres to the ridge, go from tonk to tonk along it, and come down the same day, a round of some twenty-seven kilometres. Many keep the walk without food or water until they are back. Those who cannot walk are carried in dolis by men of the villages below. The Jal Mandir, a temple set by a pool near the top, is where most pilgrims rest. Winter, from Kartik to Phalgun, is the main season; in the rains the path is slippery and the leeches are many.

03A hill kept for worship

The Santhal people of the country round call the hill Marang Buru and hold their own festival of the hunt here, and the two traditions have shared the hill for centuries. In 2019 the central government marked an eco-sensitive zone round the Parasnath wildlife sanctuary, and the Jharkhand government’s plans to develop the hill for tourism followed. Jains across the country protested; Muni Sugyeysagar, a Jain monk, died at Jaipur in January 2023 while fasting against the plan. On 5 January 2023 the Union environment ministry stayed all tourism and eco-tourism activity on the hill and asked the state to keep it a place of pilgrimage.

The life of this place