The Jain teacher Parshvanatha

Parshvanatha is the twenty-third of Jainism’s revered teachers, and is depicted here standing in meditation. Parshvanatha may have lived sometime in the eighth century bce and is credited with founding the Jain monastic community. His image appears in almost all Jain temples and can be identified by the snake hoods above his head. Jain texts relate that when a demon stirred up a
great storm to harm Parshvanatha, the king of the serpents came forth to shelter the sage.

The Snake as Protector: While meditating beneath a tree, Parshvanatha was attacked by a demon who, nonetheless, failed to disturb him.

Then exceedingly angered, the demon himself created clouds in the sky like the night at the end of the world. Lightning flashed in the sky, terrifying as a tongue of death. He beat the earth with streams of water. When the water reached the tip of Parshvanatha’s nose, the throne of Dharana, the king of serpents, shook. Then the serpent king went
with his wives to this teacher of the world. Dharana bowed to him and placed beneath his feet a tall lotus. The serpent king then covered Parshvanatha’s back, sides, and breast with his own coils and made an umbrella with seven hoods over his head.*

*Adapted from H. Johnson’s 1931–1964 translation of a twelfth-century Jain text by Hemachandra.