Mahavira Smruti Granth Part 01

SR No.: 010530
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kamtaprasad Jain, Others
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Society Agra
Total Pages: 363
Language: Hindi
Classification: Smruti_Granth
File Size: 9 MB

Page 289

R. N. SANT
Seals and images it is certain that Jainisna tras flourishing at the date of afohenjo Daro civilnation over 5000 years ago. The inscription on the Indus Sul No. 449 reade Finestrar Jiresi. For further corroboration see " The Jain Stapas of Mathur' and claborate sculpture found in the Kanhali-Mound is undoubtedly thic iinage of Righabha. The prescnce of two diminutive bulls indicates that the Personage honoured is Adınatha Sri Rishabhanātha has becn assigned to Pre-historic age, l114 religion of Alumsā (feat) must have been prevalent sotcral centuries bcforc the adient of the Aryans in the Indus Valles. So also the Sncial system and the civil Lau, that is, the rules of conduct for the members of the Socicly in the Karma-Bhimi of that age must harc been prcralent in Bharat-Varsha.
So thc in ins who lid thcir central religious doctrine of Yoga including **( animal sacrilicc) naturil, rocci cd the stubborn resistance at the hands of the slaunch followers of Shri Rishablanāthn cult whose slogan was 'NoaViolence is the highest religion' ( TITETI TEATTH)
After Lord Rishabhn, thic pioneer of the Bloodless Altar, there were 23 Tirthankaras, who nerctic Revivalists THT Th and of the same Jain religion.
Lord Shri Pārdsanātha and Mahāvíra-Swami have been not recognised to be the historical personages by thc IVestern and Eastern scholars like Jacobi, Bunlar (Scc Cambridgc history of India ) Before Pārswanatha, Nemirath, the 22nd Tirtbankara lived some 5000 to 8000 ycars ago, 1 e. during the preVedic period. (Note .--" Jain tradition 18 unanimous in making Lord Rishabhadesa the first Tirthanhara as its founder. There may be something Historical in thc tradition sich makes him the first Tirthankara")
Sir Radhakrishnan in bis Indian Philosophy at page 287 remarks :-"The Bhagwat Putāna endorses the view that Lord Rishabha was the founder of Jainism"
I shall quote some important extracts from the work "The short study in Science of Comparative Religions" by Major-General Furlong -
"We must widen the inquiry by making it embrace Jainism, the undoubtedly prior faith of very many millions through untold millenniums" It 18 impossible to find a beginning of Jainism, which appears an earliest faith of India.". I shall conclude the point of antiquity by quoting only two very important extracts from the Judgments of the most eminent High Court
Judges
Kumaraswami Shastri. Ag. Chief Justice in 50 Madras 228 ( 1927)
remarks:
"Modern research has shown that Jains are not Hinda diesenters, but that Jainism has an origin and history long anterior to Smritis and Srutis and