Jainism

Author(s): N R Guseva
Publisher: Sindu Publications P L

Page 22

JAINISM
Vedic literary works, scholars concluded that this population was able to build ramparts or defensive structures similar to them and that they defended their independence in battles.
Several scholars assume that this pre-Aryan population knew iron, which, as is established, Aryans did not possess. This view is illustrated by the example of the Asuras-a small nationality living at present on the plateau of Netarhut in the state of Bihar and preserving to this day the handicraft of melting iron by hand and making iron tools. These Asuras are traced to those Asuras, who are constantly referred to as the enemies of Aryans in the Vedic literature. It is also considered that they were from some of those peoples, who had settled in the valley of Indus in the period of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, and were driven by the Aryans to the east. 11
Judging from this and other analogous data about the pre-Aryan population, and also having learnt a good deal about the civilization of the valley of Indus and about the civilization, similar to it which existed to the south and the east of it, it is possible to subscribe with certainty to the view of almost all the contemporary scholars that the culture of the pre-Aryan population was, in a significant degree, higher than the culture of the Aryans.
Thus, we see that the process of assimilation must have flown from both the sides, and that the Aryans assimilated many aspects of material and spiritual culture of the local populations.
If the Aryan population grew irrepressibly in the northwest regions and thus had the possibility of preserving more elements (aspects) of its own culture, then the family-kin groups of the first Aryan colonisers who were isolated from the main mass of their own people and who had left for the east were compelled to adopt themselves to that culture and that ethnical environment in which they found themselves.
As a result of mutual assimilation and of the fact that assimilation of local culture by newcomers played a more significant role than the assimilation of the aspects of culture
11. K. K. Leuva, The Asur; V. G. Paranjape, Asura Domination in Rigvedic India.