Introduction to Jainism

Author(s): Rudi Jansma, Sneh Rani Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 37

HISTORY AND TIRTHAMKARAS
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introduced agriculture, armed defense, and the use of fire to prepare food.
Education
He paid much attention to education. He introduced the institution of teaching and taught seventy-two arts to men and sixty-four to women. The first art was writing, the most important one was number theory and calculation, and the last art was that of the knowledge of omens. He also introduced a hundred professional skills and five professions. The main classification of the arts and sciences was: 1. the use of weapons; 2. writing; 3. agriculture; 4. education; 5. trade; and 6. art and architecture. In addition he taught certain specialties to his children. He taught economics to Bharata, astrology to Bāhubali, and to the others he taught social sciences, the art of dancing, esthetics, mathematics and alphabetic script – and this is said to have been the first alphabet in history. In terms of social status and legal rights men and women were equal.
It seems shocking that this greatest advocate of nonviolence and compassionate love of all ages actually brought the art of weaponry to humankind, though only for defensive, not offensive purposes. Would the world not have been served better by the completely pacifistic ideal of weaponlessness? Jains may say that all the worldly teaching of Rishabha were given by him before he became a monk, and that as a monk he had to suffer all the karmas of the first part of his life. But it must also be true that the psychology of humanity had already reached a point on the downward cycle where separateness, jealousy and enmity played a role, and that in that context warfare became unavoidable. This shows parallels with the description Plato gives of the ideal state, in which people occupy themselves with grilling acorns and live a life of contentment. But as soon as people start to want more than they need, scarcity emerges, along with, the necessity of agriculture, of territorial borders and therefore territorial