Jain Journal 1972 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 85

The discovery of Indus Valley Civilisation seems to have thrown a new light on the antiquity of Jainism. The time assigned by the scholars to this culture on the archaeological and other grounds is 3000 B.C. It seems that the people of Indus Valley were highly civilised and cultured. Their culture, however, is ascribed to the Dravidians who, according to the Jaina tradition, were the devout followers of Sramaņa religion as preached by Lord Rsabha, the first Tirthankara and contrary to Vedic beliefs. As they were the followers of Jainism, the Dravidians are styled as Vrātyas along with the Licchavis, Jnatrs, etc., by Manu. Likewise the Asuras were also the followers of Jainism. The Brāhmaṇas say that the Asuras were the progeny of Prajapati (who was no other than Rsabha) and they were hostile to Vedic Aryans. (Rg. 1,174.5). In Brahmanic Vişnu and Padma Purāna it has been clearly stated that Jainism was preached by a naked monk called Mayamoha among the Asuras, who lived on the banks of the Narmada. This region is regarded as a place of pilgrimage by the Jainas even today. Sir John Marshall rightly notes that "a comparison of the Indus Valley and Vedic cultures shows incontestably that they were unrelated. The Vedic religion is normally uniconic. At Mohenjodaro and Harappa iconism is everywhere apparent. In the houses of Mohenjodaro the firepit is conspicuously lacking."
It is a fact that the Jainas are the first Indian people who took to iconism in their religious worship and made the images of their Tirthankaras which resemble those found at Harappa and Mohenjodaro. The Harappa statuette is a male torso in nude form (fig. 5) which resembles the torsos found at Lohanipur (Patna). Dr. K. P. Jayaswal assigned the latter to Mauryan and Sunga periods respectively and declared that “it is the oldest Jaina image yet found in India, as it must belong at the latest to the Mauryan period” (IBORS, March, 1947). In the face of similarities, the nude torso of Harappa seems to represent an image of a Jina, probably of Jina Rsabha. T. N. Ramacandran, Jt. Director-General of Indian Archeology after studying this question independently have declared that "we are perhaps recognising in Harappa statuette a fullfledged Jaina Tirthankara in the characteristic pose of physical abondon (kāyotsarga). The statuette under description is therefore a splendid representative specimen of this thought of Jainism at perhaps its very inception."
Figures on the Mohenjodaro seals also depict the yogic pose and idea of physical abandonment of the Jainas. These figures are represented as nude in standing kāyotsarga pose with a trifūla-like decoration on their head and the eyesight fixed on the tip of the nose, which are