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The Oldest Living Religion
Vrātyas or Vțşalas in the early Brahm anic Literature. 1 They with their well built cities (Puras) and non-violent, non-sacrificial cult were the indigenous rivals and enemies whom the first Aryans had to encounter for settling and extending in this country. In fact, according to the Jaina tradition, Prince Dravida, a son of Lord R$abha was the progenitor of the race who later on came to be called as Dravidas. Many Dravida Princes of old are believed to have turned Jaina saints and as such are worshipped even to this day.
Major Gen. J. G. R. Forlong, F. R. S. E., F, R. A. S., M.A.I. etc. point out, as the result of his over seventeen years' study and research, that, “All upper, western, northcentral India was then ----say 1500 to 800 B.C. ard indeed from coknown times ruled by Turanians, conveniently called Draviďas, and given to trce, serpent and phallic worship but there also then existed throughout upper India an ancient and highly organized religion, philosophical, ethical and severely ascetical, viz. Jainism, out of which clearly developed the early ascetical features of Brāhmanism and Buddhism. Long before Aryans reached the Ganges or even the Sarasvati, Jainas had been taught by some twenty two prominent Bodhas, saints or Tirthankaras, prior to the 23rd Bodba Pārsva of the 8th or 9th century B.C., and he knew of all his predecessors-pious Rșis living at long intervals of time, and of several scriptures even then known as Pūrvas or Purāṇas, that is ancient, which had been banded down for ages in the memory of
1 Prof. A, Chakravarti, M.A., I.E.S. - Yesterday and Today - Chapter on Glimpse of Ancient India, p. 59-71, and Jain Gazette XXI, p.6, also see Modern Review 1929,
p. 499.
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