Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

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

Page 67

and, with the developing notions of samsara and karma in the late Vedic age, the pressures were mounting to find a solution to the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The necessity for resolution found an outlet in the targeting of women, the agents of birth. Over time, a stereotype developed that depicted women as being mentally, morally, hygienically and biologically inferior.
While women appear to have been active in India's major religious movements (Vedism, Buddhism and Jainism) early in the first millennium B.C.E., their participation was eclipsed as the millennium drew to a close. Eventually all three religions imposed constraints limiting the spiritual authority of women. The Jaina Svetambaras, however, compromised women the least. The fact that the Svetambaras have maintained an active body of women renouncers from an early time in their history to the present may indicate the survival of an ancient socio-religious paradigm in which women's religiosity was heralded. O
Endnotes
Linda Johnsen, Daughters of the Goddess: the Women Saints of India (St. Paul, Minnesota: Yes International Publishers, 1994) p.1. - Michael Tobias sees Harrapan culture as the birthplace of the cult of ahimsa and perhaps the roots of Jainism itself. See: Life Force: the World of Jainism (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991) p.21.
Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, "A Reassessment of the Theories of Racial Origins of the People of the Indus Valley Civilization from Recent Anthropological Data", Studies in the Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology of South Asia, Kenneth A.R. Kennedy and Gregory L. Possehl, eds. (New Delhi: Oxford & IBH Publishing Co., 1984) p. 102. 4 Asko Parpola, "The Encounter of Religions in India 2000-1000 B.C.," Temenos 12 (1976), p.28 SIbid.
Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, "Skeletal Biology: When Bones Tell Tales," Archaeology, 34/1 (Jan/Feb. 1981) pp. 17-24.
David W. Anthony and Nikolai B. Vinogradov, "Birth of the Chariot," Archaeology, (Mar./Apr. 1995) pp. 36-41.
8 Ibid
The gender bias is subtle, but nonetheless obvious. The unexamined assumption and line of extrapolation about the "proto-Siva" seals consist of the following: A male god, versed in yoga and meditation was the harbinger of a tradition of renouncing and, ergo, the cornerstone of India's great religious tradition. Note, for example, the following typical viewpoint: "it is the