Jain Journal 1973 01

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

Page 56

JANUARY, 1973
The study of these events as stated in the Jaina Agamas and Purāṇas reveals that the history of mankind is the history of the struggle between animal man and divine man and that of the attack of man on Nature to protect himself from its offensive behaviours in various forms. This history is still continuing in the process of development of man and society, as divine man has been conquering animal man and Nature since the infancy of the human race up to the present day with his mighty force and scientific explorations and achievement.
Besides, the above account of the Kulakara system of society throws a considerable light on the middle and upper stages of savagery, and the lower, middle and upper stages of barbarism as shown by F. Engels and K. Marx. Middle stage of savagery begins with the employment of fire and the art of cooking and the active urge of discovery. Men spread over the greater part of the earth's surface by following the rivers and coasts and scaling hills from his original habitat.
"The crude, unpolished stone implements of the earlier stone Agethe so-called Paleolithic-which belong wholly or predominantly, to this period, and are scattered over all the continents, are evidence of these migrations. The newly occupied territories as well as the unceasingly active urge for discovery, linked with their command of the art of producing fire by friction, made available new food-stuffs, such as farinaceous roots, and tubers, baked in hot ashes or in baking pits (ground ovens), and game, which was occasionally added to the diet after the invention of the first weapons the club and the spear. Exclusively hunting peoples, such as, figure in books, that is, peoples subsisting solely by hunting, have never existed, for the fruits of the chase were much too precarious to make that possible. As a consequence of the continued uncertainty with regard to sources of food-stuffs, cannibalism appears to have arisen at this stage, and continued for a long time. The Australians and many Polynesians are to this day in this middle stage of savegery.'
11
Upper stage of savagery "begins with the invention of the bow and arrow, whereby wild game became a regular item of food, and hunting one of the normal occupations. Bow string and arrow constitute a very composite instrument, the invention of which presupposes long accumulated experience and sharpened mental powers, and, consequently, simultaneous acquaintance with a host of other inventions."12 "We find,
11 The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, F. Engels, p. 24.
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12
Ibid.