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INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM
rock hills ending in a peak, and a Jina dedicated to penitence with lianas growing around their bodies to show how long they were standing motionless in their meditative posture.
South of Sravana Belagola too an Indus culture bloomed in the period long before Parśvanāth, who lived 2900 years ago, as is shown by engravings on various South Indian rock hills, with the seventh Tīrthamkara, Suparávanāth, characterized by a hood of 5 snakeheads.
The findings in and around Harappa and Mohenjodaro (now in Pakistan) in the first part of the twentieth century provided sensational information about these early forms of human civilization. Some experts estimate the antiquity of early Harappan culture at 7,000 years, the middle period at 5,500 and the later period at 4,000 years. The objects are numbered and stored in museums. So one now has texts available, and modern catalogues 88 contain detailed information. They show the seals and other objects which were studied later, notably by the Finnish researcher Asko Parpola,89 the American G.L. Posseh1,90 and Iravatham Mahadevan” of India. Many others have tried to decipher the script. Some claim partial success, but all give their own interpretation to the scriptural signs. Phonetic values have been assigned to them, but without the authors explaining what their assumptions are based on. The basis of transliteration by Indians has often been prejudiced and they have tried to explain the signs from a Vedic background (B.B. Lal, S.R. Rao) or to see the meter of the Hindu Gayātrī mantra or other suppositions reflected in them. Such claims have however recently been firmly rejected by leading scientists, particularly by Ram Sharan Sharma on a platform of the Indian Council of the Historical Research's Foundation Day in March 2005. Sometimes more than one meaning is given to one sign, or one meaning to different signs. None of the researchers has considered the possibility that the signs could be read în a very different way, and could be approached from the mental perspective of the ancient Jains – the śramana tradition.
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