What Are the Five Kalyanaks in Jainism?

The Panch Kalyanak are the five great auspicious events that mark the life of every Tirthankara. Jain tradition holds that all twenty-four Tirthankaras pass through the same five, which is why the term is used generally and not only of one Tirthankara.

Each Kalyanak is recorded in the tradition with both a day in the Indian calendar and a place, and those details are what temple rituals and festival calendars are built on. Vasupujya, the twelfth Tirthankara, is distinctive in that four of his kalyanaks — birth, renunciation, omniscience and nirvana — all took place at Champapuri.

The Kalyanaks are the reason so many Jain observances are tied to specific tithis: a temple's annual celebrations, and the Panch Kalyanak Pratishtha ceremony performed when a new idol is consecrated, both re-enact these five events in sequence.

For the Kalyanak dates and places of an individual Tirthankara — Neminath, Rishabhdev, Sambhavanath and others — see the Tirthankara-specific answers in this Q&A collection.