Place · Svetambara Jain temple · India
Nakoda Parshvanatha, Barmer
Also known as Barmer, Nakoda Parshvanatha, Parshvanatha, Parshvanatha (Nakoda)
The 12-century Parshvanatha Jain temple at Nakoda village in Barmer district, Rajasthan, 110 kilometres from Jodhpur — a major Svetambara Jain tirtha. The temple's foundation is 1374 (traditional); the current structure dates to the 15-century Svetambara community rebuild. The temple is particularly famous for the vyavaharic (business-partner) deity Nakoda Bhairava — a tutelary spirit worshipped alongside the main Parshvanatha deity. Nakoda Bhairava is credited with resolving business and family disputes; devotees offer sweets, coconuts and oil lamps. The 1920 Nakoda Jain Shvetambara Tirth Trust was formed to manage the temple and its charitable activities. The annual Jain festivals draw over 200,000 pilgrims from across India's Jain merchant communities. The temple's foundation lies on the ancient Jaisalmer-Barmer trade route.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 25.750, 71.900
Connections (1)
- Companion in the same setOsian Mahavira
Osian and Nākodā are the two great Marwar tirthas, and both are as much community institutions as temples: Osian is where the Oswal merchant caste traces its conversion, and Nākodā's Bhairava is petitioned about lawsuits and loans by the same merchant families' descendants. Nākodā Bhairava is a vyavahāric deity, petitioned about worldly matters that Jain doctrine makes no provision for, which is the clearest case of a tirtha keeping a functionary its theology does not allow.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Barmer”. Jain tīrtha guides and the Digambara and Śvetāmbara temple trusts’ own records.
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