Jainism the Oldest Living Religion

Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain, Sagarmal Jain
Publisher: P V Research Institute Varanasi

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The Oldest Living Religion
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to Jainism, and, therefore, the Indus civilization is sup. posed to be non-Aryan or of non-Vedic Aryan origin"] because Jainism is believed to have a non-Aryan or at least, pre-Vedic Aryan origin.
Although in the words of Prof. Humayun Kabir "There have been scholars who doubt whether Mohen-jodaro represents pre-Aryan culture at all. They believe that India was the original home of the Aryans and Mohenjodaro marks only an early stage in t'e development of Aryan culture”.2 Still the general tendency of the scholars has been in favour of the theory that the Indus people were of Dravidian stock, Rev. Father Dr. Heras is emphatically of the opinion tbat the Mohenjodaro people were Dravidian, that the language of the Mohenjodaro inscriptions was a purely Dravidian language and that their culture, religion etc. was also Dravidian.
According to him Nandur, the land of the Crabs (the constellation crab of the zodiac), was the ancient name of Mohenjodaro. He believes that the Nandur script was mad's first attempt at writing and that the Nandur or Mohenjodaro civilization was earlier than that of predynastic Egypt and was probably man's earliest civilization, The stage of this civilization is said to be Chalco-lithic (copper-stone), iron not yet being known. According to Sir John Marshall, this civilization "must have had a long
1 JA., XV, 2, p. 58. 2 Our Heritage (Bombay), p. 12.
3 The Crab was the special symbol of Puşpadanta, the 9th Jaina Tirthankara.
4 'Different Interpretations of the Pre-historic Indus Valley culture of 3000 B.C.:— by Dr. B. R. Chatterji, Ph.D., D.Litt., Principal, Meerut College, M.C. Magazine, 1936.