Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 22

sufficient time will progressively immobilize mental process as well as bodily movement. the roots of this practice may be speculatively sought in shamanism. The Jain Uttara Sutra (XXX.6) says, "If a monk remains motionless when lying down, sitting, or standing upright, this is called abandoning the body. "32 The phrase suggests "leaving the body," as the shaman is believed to do on his magical journeys, when his body often remains motionless as if dead or abandoned. 33 That such a practice was a part of the proto-Jain Ur-yoga is likely, for the muni of the Rg Veda X.136 says:
Exulting in our seerhood, upon the winds we have ascended. Of us, you mortals, only our bodies do you behold.
The Middle Vedic literature, in other words, indicates stages of Jainism at least as early as 1000 B.C.E., as chronological guesses about the Middle Vedic period have tended..
Later Cultic Evidence
Information about some Medieval Indian sects offers confirmation for the association of Jainism with quasishamanic proto-yoga. In historical times, in the non-Aryan tradition, the goddesses known as the Seven Mothers (sapta matrika) were worshipped with human sacrifice. virtually all the cults that are involved in the non-Aryan substrate worshipped them at one time or another, including Pasupatas, Kapalikas, Aghoris, Ajivikas and Jains.
The ancient affiliation of the Jains with these semiprimitive sects is shown by the fact that, despite their famous obsession with ahimsa, Jains also engaged in these rites, cutting off pieces of their own flesh and throwing them into a
fire. 34