tirthankaras/tk-12-vasupujya.jpg · 1200×1600Distinctive in three ways. He never married — a bala-brahmachari, celibate from birth. He never ruled; he declined the throne and took initiation as a prince, breaking the usual king-then-renunciant pattern. And all five of his auspicious events — conception, birth, initiation, omniscience and liberation — took place in one city, Champapuri. No other Tirthankara shares this.
Champa was a real and important city, capital of the ancient kingdom of Anga, well known to Buddhist texts as well. Here archaeology, Jain tradition and Buddhist tradition all point to the same place.
