Jain Journal 1973 01

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

Page 58

JANUARY, 1973
The upper stage of barbarism "begins with the smelting, of iron ore and passes into civilization through the invention of alphabetic writing and its utilization for literary records."19
It is to be noted that Rsabhadeva, the fifteenth Kulakara, according to the Jambudvipa Prajñapti, was the first tribal leader to make invention of sword20 by smelting iron ore and to introduce alphabetic writing and its utilization for literary records21. The Age of Nabhi and his son Rsabha was the Age of transition from the upper stage of Kulakarism into the dawn of civilization, which can be compared with the upper stage of barbarism passing into civilization "with the invention of alphabetic writing. "22 At this stage...which...was traversed independently only in the eastern hemisphere, more progress was made in production than inall the previous stages put together. To it belong the Greeks of the Heroic Age, the Italian tribes shortly before the foundation of Rome, the Germans of Tacitus and the Normans of the days of the Vikings."
"Above all, we here encounter for the first time the iron ploughshare drawn by cattle, making possible land cultivation on a wide scale-tillage -and, in the conditions then prevailing, a practically unlimited increase in the means of subsistence; in connection with this we find also the clearing of forests and their transformation into arable and pasture land-which, again, would have been impossible on a wide scale without the iron axe and spade. But with this there also came a rapid increase of the population and dense populations in small areas."24
It is to be observed that Rsabhadeva taught his people one hundred25 arts and crafts for solving their economic problems and upholding the social order.
19 Ibid., p. 27
Skt. Mahapurana, Parva 16, 11. 179-362; Prakrit Mahapurana, S.V, 19, p. 87.
Avasyakacurni, p. 156, "lehattidaram-bambhiya dahinahatthena leho daito."
The Origin of the Family, etc., p. 27.
Ibid., pp. 27-28.
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21
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24 Ibid., p. 28.
25
149
123
Avasyakacurni, Pt. I, p. 156.