Three Faiths in Land of Aryan Thoughts

SR No.: 007612
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shuganchand Jain
Publisher: Shuganchand Jain
Total Pages: 6
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 2 MB

Page 2

the view that Rsabha was the founder of Jainism. There is evidence to show that as far back as the first century BCE, there were people worshiping Rsabha Deva, the first Tirthankara of the Jains. There is no doubt that Jainism prevailed much before Jina Parshvanatha and Jina Mahavira. The Yajurveda mentions the names of
three
three Tirthankaras-Rsabha, Ajitanatha
and Aristanemi. Aristanemi was a cousin of Vasudeva Krishna.”
This country is known as Bharatavarsha after the eldest son of Rsbha called Bharata.
The concept of Ahimsa, the central Jain religious and ethical teaching, is not found in the Vedas. This has been shown by the eminent Indologist Prof. W. Norman Brown in his Tagore Memorial Lectures 1964-65 published in the book “Man in the Universe'. His observation deserves quoting in full:
“Though the Upanishads contain the first literary reference
to the idea of rebirth and to the notion that one's action (karma) determines the condition of one's future existences, and though
they arrive at the point of recognition that rebirth may occur not only in human form, but in animal bodies, they tell us nothing about the precept of ahimsa, yet that precept is later associated with the
belief that a soul in its wandering may inhabit both kind of forms.
Ancient Brahminical literature is conspicuously silent about ahimsa. Early Vedic texts do not even record the noun ahimsa (non-injury) nor know the ethical meaning which the noun later designates. Its first occurrence in Sanskrit literature is in the Upanishads, where it has nothing to do with transmigration. It is merely mentioned in a list of five virtues along with tapa (austerity), dana (alms-giving), arjava (rectitude), and satya (truthfulness).
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