Shikharji — Twenty Tirthankaras Left the World From This Peak

The Mountain of Finished Journeys

Every faith has one address it calls ultimate. For Jains across both Shvetambara and Digambara traditions it is Shikharji — "the peak of concentration" — atop Parasnath hill, at 1,365 metres the highest point in Jharkhand. Tradition holds that twenty of the twenty-four Tirthankaras attained moksha here, above all Parshvanatha, the historical predecessor to Mahavira, who is said to have ended his fast unto perfection on this ridge around the 8th century BCE.

A Pilgrimage Measured in Kilometres of Forest

Unlike single-building temples, Shikharji is a landscape: pilgrims walk roughly 27 kilometres barefoot through sal forest, ascending to a chain of small marble shrines called tonks, each marking the exact spot where a liberated soul left the world. The route doubles as a wildlife sanctuary — sambar, elephants and leopards share the path — which Jains read as fitting company for a mountain defined by ahimsa.

A Living Tirtha Defended

When state tourism proposals threatened development on the hill in 2018–19, nationwide Jain protests — among the community's largest modern mobilizations — forced their withdrawal, affirming Shikharji's status as worship-ground rather than viewpoint. The episode proved what the tonks already showed: this is not a ruin commemorating liberation, but an operating route toward it, walked family by family every year.