Tirthankaras in Jainism

A Tirthankara is a ford-maker - one who has crossed the river of rebirth and established a crossing for others. Twenty-four appear in each half-cycle of time, and the twenty-four of the present cycle run from Rishabhanatha to Mahavira.

Tirthankaras are not gods and not incarnations of a god. They are souls who attained omniscience and liberation by their own effort, and who taught the path before their death. They grant nothing and intervene in nothing; veneration of them is understood as the holding up of a model, which is why Jain worship can be sincere without being petitionary. Rishabhanatha, the first, is credited with founding human civilisation - agriculture, writing, law - before renouncing it. Parshvanatha, the twenty-third, is generally accepted by historians as a historical figure of the ninth century BCE. Mahavira, the twenty-fourth, was a contemporary of the Buddha, and it is his teaching that the surviving Jain canon transmits.

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