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fibers, cotton fibers, woolenfibers (of camel, goat and sheep etc.), tree barks and leather (of lion, leopard, elephant and deer etc.). The mordanting of fabrics by natural colours was also a common technology. 17 Ink was also produced from naturally colored products. Kundakunda also mentions metallurgy of gold and some other metals. 18 The technology of fireworks, oil extraction and lac production was also known as they are included in 15 professions by Asadhara of 13th century. 19 The manufacture of weights and measures was also a trade. Gems and gemology is mentioned in many references.
The seventy two arts for women mention a number of arts to be learnt by them in the area of home science involving 26 arts. They include (i) cosmetics20 (from natural products like turmeric, myrtle, etc.), natural and perfumed hair-oils, hair-tonics, shampoos, (Triphala, Shekakai, Ritha etc.), hair-dyes etc. (ii) soft and medicated drinks, (ii) dairy products and fermentation technology (from 23 sources, butter and rejuvenating preparations like Cyavanaprāśa. The details of many of them are found in literature.
The indigenous medical science was quite developed contemporarily. There was a well established medical preparation technology for powdered, decocted mixtures and solution medicines.21 The multiply-boiled extracts or fermented mild-alcoholic extracts (like Āsavas, Aristas etc.) of Ayurvedic medicines showed a high technical know-how.
One, thus, finds a large number of technical sciences described in Jain canons. However, it must be kept in mind that the different skills were based on caste and family and they kept it a trade secrete. Hence normal details as expected today are not found in canons. Still one has sufficient stray qualitative and, in some cases (i.e. medical preparations), quantitative details which lead to a guess of their empirical nature. Secondly, Jaina canons represent the age of natural products and, hence, most of skills were based on their utilization for serving the cause of humanity. These should be deeply studied with historical perspective. The deficiencies there have led to the current age of better technology.
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