Jainism

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

Page 39

HISTORICAL & ETHNICAL ROOTS OF JAINISM 25
accepts the five brothers as husbands voluntarily and according to her desire.11
Such a description is important for us for two reasons. Firstly, it clearly relates to that epoch, when polyandrical mar. riages were not prohibited, were not disreputable. It bears more ancient character in comparison to Mahabharat itself and all the subsequent literature, developing and explaining these and other episodes of this epic, since in all these works attempts are invariably made as if to make apologies for the very fact of this marriage, to elucidate, to legalise, or to ascribe external reasons for this form of marriage, which was not acceptable to the Aryan society of the epoch of formation of Mahabharat and was denounced by the social opinion, religious canons and the code of rights. Secondly, it shows that Jains did not de nounce polyandrical marriage. This again gives ground to connect Jainism with that ethnical environment, in which such a marriage was the norm of family relations i.e. it was possible with the Dravidian tribes, amongst whom, even at present, strong survivals of polyandry exist.
It is worthwhile turning attention to the Swastik signs, seen on the seals of Cultures of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, and which are common in the symbols of Jainism. Swastik is the symbolic sign of the 7th priest (Tirthankar), Suparshva (the Jains consider that there were 23 Tirthankars before Mahavir) and the middle part forms the sign of the 18th Tirthankar Ara. This sign is always drawn in manuscripts, in miniatures and in the ornaments of the Jain temples etc.
Several scholars consider that the system of counting of periods of time, called yuga, kalpa and manyantara, known to Hinduism (and correspondingly in Indological literature) arose before Vedic culture and that in Hinduism this system penetrated in that epoch, when it had to withstand Buddhism and Jainism.12
While agreeing that the sources of Jainism arose in nonAryan environment and that Kshatriyas (Aryans as well as Vratyas) played a significant role in forming new faiths, we cannot all the same, explain to which people these VratyaKshatriyas belonged—to Mundas or to Dravids, to Tibetan,
11. M. J. Kashalikar, The Story of Draupadi's Swayamvara. 12. L. Rocher, The Cyclical Concept of Time in Hinduism, pp. 208-9.