Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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The Incipient Stage 55
unmistakable signs of polish found in many districts of India. The religious beliefs and practices of the food gatherers were modified according to the new social ideas introduced by the Neolithic revolution. Agricultural rituals were added to those connected with hunting. Burial of the dead was done with more pomp and social effort. The dead so reverently deposited to the earth was supposed somehow to affect the crops that sprang from the earth and was probably brought in relation to the existing Mother Goddess cult, the Earth Mother thus becoming the guardian of the dead, connected alike with the corpse and the seed-corn beneath the earth.1
The discovery of copper and bronze brought the urban revolution which was initiated in the alluvial valleys of the Nile, the TigrisEuphrates and the Indus about five thousand years ago, with the transformation of some river-side villages into cities. The Zhob and Kulli sites have furnished a fair number of terracotta figurines in which we recognise the earliest embodiment of Indian Mother Goddess. To some extent the Zhob and Kulli cultures appear to coincide with each other in certain phases of development and to overlap in their latest phases with the Harappan culture of the Indus valley. Remains of Harappan settlements stretch from Makran coast to Kathiawar and northwards to the Himalayan foothills and what impresses the observer is the complete uniformity among the objects found in this vast area which implies the existence of a strong and centralised authority regulating the life and activities of the people over this extensive region.2
Marshall laid stress upon a common cultural bond between the Indus Valley and the West especially in the field of religion. Many of the living features of later Hindu religion and philosophy can also be traced directly to this pre-Vedic source, and in this connection we may refer to the principles of Tantricism, the philosophical Samkhya, the practice of Yoga, some ingredients of Buddhism and Jainism and the present day Saktism. The Mother Goddess figurines, scenes on seals and ritual objects, notably large stone lingas and yonis give glimpses of Tantric survivals, of magic fertility rites that formed the basis of primitive Tantricism, and of personal deities arising out of them. In popular Hinduism linga and yoni (male and female organs)
Icf. Piggott, PI, p. 127. 'Childe, NLMAE, pp. 197-203. 'Marshall, MIC, I, pp. 48ff.