Jainism in India

Author(s): Ganesh Lalwani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 69

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JAINISM IN INDIA
and resembled closely the ones represented on the lyāgapalus excavated from the Kankali Tila, the site of a Jaina stupa at Mathura.
2. Harappa-At Harappa, a village in the Montgomery district of the Punjab an extensive mound of great antiquity was excavated and a large number of clay scals bearing figures of standing males were unearthed.
Rama Prasad Chanda compared these figures with Jaina statues. He found that the pose of the standing deities on the Indus seals especially of the one reproduced as fig. 13 in plate XII of Sir John Marshall's Mohenjodaro and Indus Civilisation Vol. I resembled very closely the pose of the standing Rsabha in kāyotsarga from Mathura. He further remarked that among the Egyptian sculptures of the time of the early dynasties (III-VI) there were standing statuettes with arms, hanging on two sides (The Cambridge History of Ancient India Vol. I, plates 80c and 82c).
“But though these early Egyptian statuettes, and the archaic Greek Kouroi show nearly the same pose, they lack the feeling of abandon that characterises the standing figures on the Indus seals and images of Jinas in kāyotsarga posture. The name Rsabha means bull and bull is the emblem of Jina Rsabha. The standing diety figured on Indus seals with a bull in the foreground may be the prototype of Rsabha."
The late Dr. K. N. Sitaram, Curator of the Lahore Museum, saw a further similarity between the figure of the Indus seal (No. 13, plate XII of Marshall's op.cit.) and the standing image of Suparsva, the seventh Jina. The latter has the hoods of five cobras spread over the head. The Indus seal also shows cobra-hoods similarly over the head.
Whatever the truth is, it can reasonably be inferred that a cult of meditation similar to that practised by the Jainas formed part of the Indus Valley Civilisation thousand years ago. Further discoveries from other ancient sites might reveal more signs of resemblance between the Indus cult and Jaina religion.
3. Simhapura- The Chinese traveller, Hiuen Tsiang, a follower of Buddhism, came out to India for paying a visit to Buddhist teachers and sacred places. He travelled in this country from 629 A.D. to 655 A.D. and wrote a detailed itinerary of his journey. In his account of Kapisa, the eastern part of Afghanistan, he says that besides Buddhist
monks, there were ‘naked ascetics', some of whom besmeared their