Shree Sumatinath Bhagwan: Life Stories of the Fifth Tirthankara

Shree Sumatinath Bhagwan was the fifth Tirthankar of the present time cycle. Lord’s height was 300 bows.

Lord Sumatinath’s symbol is goose. Tumburu Yaksh Dev and Mahakali Yakshini Devi are Lord’s Shaasan Dev-Devi, respectively. Come, let’s read about the life story of the Lord’s birth as the Tirthankara and His previous two births.

Shree Sumatinath Bhagwan - Previous Births

King Vijayasen and Queen Sudarshana ruled in Shankhpur Nagar, located in the Pushpakalavati Vijay in the Purva Mahavideh Kshetra of Jambudweep. The king was ruling the kingdom very beautifully and the queen, too, was quite virtuous and chaste by nature.

Once, Queen Sudarshana sat on an elephant and went for a city tour. There, in a garden, she saw an extremely beautiful lady seated on a nicely decorated elephant. Not only that, there were eight other young ladies in service of this lady. Seeing this, Queen Sudarshana became curious to know who was this lucky lady and also who were these eight young ladies! So, the queen sent her maid to fetch all the details of them. The maid said that the lady was Sulakshana, the wife of Nandisen, an affluent merchant in town; and in her service were her eight daughters-in-law.

Queen Sudarshana did not have any child. Seeing Sulakshana, the queen was deeply saddened; she thought that life without children was meaningless. She shared all her feelings with the king. The king, with great devotion, worshipped his clan deity (Kul Devta), renouncing food and water. On the sixth day of his fast, the deity got pleased and he blessed the king for attaining a son.

Sudarshana got pregnant, and that night, in a dream, she saw a lion entering her mouth. This meant that a bright and powerful son would be born to the queen. Their son being the best among the men, the king and queen decided to name their son as ‘Purushsinh’.

When Purushsinh grew young, he was married to eight princesses. In young age itself, Purushsinh felt extremely dispassionate toward life. He felt like taking Diksha. So, He went to a Muni Maharaj from whom He intended to take Diksha. He asked Purushsinh to take His parents’ permission before taking Diksha.

Purushsinh requested Muni Maharaj to show him the way of getting rid of sensual pleasures. Muni Maharaj gave a beautiful preaching that sensual desires only are the root cause of this world and they expand the worldly life. Sensual desire is one of the biggest obstacles; they do not allow us to remain in awareness. One is indulged in worldly pleasures! The sensual pleasure exists due to the belief that there is happiness in it. To begin with, this opinion, “There is happiness in sensual objects.”, needs to be broken. In this dire Kaliyug, all around, the entire environment is that of sensual desires, and one does not have the right information regarding it.

Celibacy that is limited to only physical is not said to be Brahmacharya, but it is there where not a single thought regarding enjoyment of sensual pleasure through mind-speech-action arises; it does not arise in the consciousness either! When such a state is achieved, that’s when one is said to have come in brahmacharya in true sense. When possessions leave and when oneself will come in Ekatva bhavana, one will understand the worldly entanglements in its true form; that’s when the solution will come. The main reason why sensual desires are stuck to us is that there is an ingrained opinion of, “There is pleasure in sensory objects.” That opinion should change! If the opinion changes, then this will automatically leave on its own.

By understanding the significance of Brahmacharya from Muni Maharaj, Purushsinh was greatly satisfied. Thereafter, he took Diksha and started following celibacy with right understanding. Being devotedly engaged in the Vees-sthanank aaraadhna, his Tirthankar gotra got bound.

Upon completing his life of renunciation, Purushsinh reincarnated as a celestial being in Vaijyant Vimaan. There, he passed his life that comprised of lakhs of years.

Birth, Diksha and Keval Gnan

The Soul of Purushsinh descended from heaven and with Mati Gnan, Shrut Gnan and Avadhi Gnan, He took birth as a Tirthankar at King Megh and Queen Mangalavati’s place in the Vinita Nagri of the Bharat Kshetra.

King Megh was a very just and loving person. He ruled his kingdom very nicely. Once, in the King Megh’s courtroom, two women came along with a child. One of these was a mother of that child and the other was raising that child. The husband of the two women had passed away. After the death of their husband, a lot of quarrels took place between the two regarding the wealth he had left behind.

The real mother pleaded to give the child to her. The fake mother also claimed that the child was really hers. The king had to decide who of these two was the real mother but he was unable to. He narrated the story to queen. Queen Mangalavati said to the two women, “When the Tirthankar Bhagwan residing in my womb will take birth, He will do the right justice for both of you. You wait until then.” Listening to this, the fake mother was quite thrilled. But the real mother did not agree, and she said, “No, I will not be able to live without my son for so many years! What will happen to my child? Who will take care of him? I want justice right now. This child is mine and I want it to be with me only.”

The queen was quick to recognize the genuine concern of the real mother, the expressions on her face and her inner turmoil, and thus, announced her judgment that this woman is the real mother of the child.

This is how the wise Lord in the womb, from within, gave His mother the wisdom of making the right judgement. Based on this event, after the birth, the Lord was named as ‘Sumati’ (meaning right thinking).

Lord Sumatinath got married; He was coronated. Thereafter, upon the request of the celestial deities, King Sumati took Diksha. After 20 years of Diksha, He attained Keval Gnan (Omniscience).

Deshna – Ekatva Bhavana

After attaining Keval Gnan, Sumatinath Bhagwan gave Deshna on Ekatva bhavna. He explained how in this world, sadness-happiness, good-bad, are all dualities. All of these are based on karma. Once bound, there is no escape; we have to suffer it. Whatever happiness and unhappiness we have to suffer, all of that is of our own (karmic) account only. We have bound; hence, we have to suffer them for sure. Nobody else can share them; no one can increase or decrease it even. We feel relatives are ours; we feel we share our happiness and unhappiness together. This belief is totally wrong. When time comes, we realize that no one is ours; no one else can share our suffering.

Story of King Nami

There is a very nice story of King Nami, based on the Ekatva bhavna. Once King Nami experienced burning sensation in his entire body and an unbearable headache too. Soon, there was tremendous pain in the entire body. To cure him, all kinds of vaids and hakims were called for; all sorts of treatments were carried out; lot of wealth was spent but his pain did not subside.

So that the king feels some cooling effect, the vaids advised applying sandalwood paste on his body. To make the paste, his every queen started rubbing the sandalwood on stone. Due to all queens rubbing the sandalwood at once, the noise of the bangles created a chaos in the king’s mind; his sleep got disturbed. The king ordered the queens to remove all their bangles. The queens kept just one bangle as the sign of being married and very slowly removed the rest of them from their hands. Thereafter, as the queens started rubbing sandalwood, there was no noise since they were wearing just one bangle now.

A veil of ignorance over the Knowledge of the Self (aavran) within shifted and it struck to the king that when all the bangles were together, there was chaos; when it was just one bangle, there was peace. Consequently, Ekatva bhavna began inside him, “I am surrounded by multiple, countless, infinite things. Therefore, I have this suffering. When I become totally alone, then there is no suffering; then there is no chaos; there is an experience of complete peace.” He kept on contemplating, “I am alone only; I have come alone only; I will go alone only. There is no one to accompany me; there is no relative of mine. Wife, children, status or power—nothing is going to be with me.” Tremendous knowledge of Ekatva bhavna arose within him.

People come into our life due to the karmic account, and when karma finishes, they get dispersed. We have to suffer the karmas that we have bound. Karmas are bound in subtlety and they are to be suffered in gross. While binding karma, we do not realize that what is being bound inside. Due to that lack of awareness, one ends up binding karma unconsciously. Karma bound unknowingly have to be suffered through the five senses, knowingly. Karma are bound through attachment-abhorrence, and through detachment, we get liberated.

Shree Sumatinath Bhagwan – Nirvana

With the Deshna of Lord Sumatinath Bhagwan, so many people attained the path of salvation. Lord had 100 Ganadhars (chief disciples of a Tirthankar), 3,20,000 Sadhus, 5,30,000 Sadhvis, 13,000 Keval Gnanis, 2,81,000 Shravaks and 5,16,000 Shravikas. Lord Sumatinath Bhagwan attained Nirvana from the Samet-Shikharji Mountain and went to Moksh.