Jainthology

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

Page 38

after the invention of the first weapons the club and the spear. Exclusively hunting peoples, such as, figure in books, that is, peoples subsisting solely by hunting, have never existed, for the fruits of the chase were much too precarious to make that possible. As a consequence of the continued uncertainty with regard to sources of foodstuffs, cannibalism appears to have arisen at this stage, and continued for a long time. The Australians and many Polynesians are to this day in this middle stage of savegery."22
Upper stage of savagery "begins with the invention of the bow and arrow, whereby wild game became a regular item of food, and hunting one of the normal occupations. Bow-string and arrow constitute a very composite instrument, the invention of which presupposes long accumulated experience and sharpened mental powers, and, consequently, simultaneous acquaintance with a host of other inventions.”28 “We find, even at this early stage, beginnings of settlement in villages, a certain mastery of the production of means of subsistence : wooden vessels and utensils, finger weaving (without looms) with filaments of bast, baskets woven from bast or rushes, and polished (Neolithic) stoneimplements. For the most part, also, fire and the stone axe bave already provided the dug-out canoe and, in places, timber and planks for house-building. All these advances are to be found, for example, among the Indians of North-Western America, who, although familiar with the bow and arrow, know nothing of pottery. The bow and arrow was for savagery what the iron sword for barbarism and fire arms for civilization, namely, the decisive weapon."14
The next stage of Kulakara system is marked with the domestication and breeding of animals and the cultivation of plants, the introduction of pottery, 25 and the smelting of iron ore 26 as they are known from the accounts of the performances of the seventh upto the fourteenth or fifteenth Kulakara in their respective Ages. These records of their activities are well-supported by the facts of history. According to F. Engels, the lower stage of barbarism begins with "the introduction of pottery"
22 23
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, F. Engels, p. 24. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 24-25. tahe samina 'hatthissa kumbhae kauna darisitam, pattayam, evam ta padhamam kumbhakara uppanna, evam ta aharo gato, Avasyaka-curni, pp. 155-156. Ibid., p. 156. According to K. Marx, after much progress of agriculture, i.e., after the introduction of plough with metal coulter, metal axes, bronze and iron tips for spears, arrows, etc., there came into existenee the domestication of animals (See Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, 2nd Edition. Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1963); vide The Origin of the Family, etc., p. 25.
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