Jainthology

Author(s): Ganesh Lalwani
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 25

MYAN
Adoration of a naked saint or a hero. Prehistoric painting in a rock shelter at Cogul near Lerdia, Spain.
light on this subject, the prehistoric cult-figurines as found in Asia and Africa will indicate how traits like involvement in respect of the mystery of life and devotion towards the glory of nature had been enrooted in the culture of man with several thousands of years before the beginning of the Christian era. As famed archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes had observed,
"The self-consciousness that intensified with the elaboration of the cerebral cortex, making man more and more aware of his actions and his separation from nature, was to take two main and opposing directions. One was towards controlling the environment. This led immediately to tool-making and then on the whole accelerating course of our technical and scientific advance. Here analysis, breaking down of the whole into manageable parts, has been the means, and the ends are wholly practical and material. The other direction is towards reuniting the part with the whole, man with the universe from which his consciousness seemed to divide him. This way led to ritual, art, religious faith, mysticism and some aspects of philosophy."
(Prehistory and the Beginning of Civilization, UNESCO 196, by Jacquetta Hawkes and Sir Leonard Woolley, pp. 105-6).
As it seems, the mysterious history of the hominids might have sparkled with inspirations and certain realizations in remote antiquity. Such ascent of man appears likely in the perspective of myths and progress of culture. This was perhaps as important as the quest for
4/JAINTHOLOGY