________________
56 : śramaņa, Vol 63, No. 4, Oct.-Dec. 2012 Archaeological evidences relating to the temples of Jain images have been discovered at Mathura, which proves its existence as early as B.C.600”.! “Though Jainism ruled out the existence of any form of God, it could not ignore emergence of contemporary Mahāvīra, Mahāyāna form of Buddhism which assigned the status of God to Buddha and received a positive response from laities. The spirit of competition led to an equally tremendous growth in the idol worship”?
“Even before the time of Lord Mahāvīra, there were traces of imageworship. The Indus valley civilization revealed innumerable sculptures in terracotta stone and bronze." The archaeological evidences support the presence of idols in the Indus valley civilization. But the earliest reference of worship is the yakşaworship, which was prevalent during Mahāvīra's times which even Lonkā has mentioned in his bolas.
Along with yakșa worship also came in idol worship. Yakşas were local deities of non-Vedic character. Their worship was even present during the time of Mahāvīra. To appease the important sections of society, Jainism arranged a pantheon around its Tīrthankaras and deities popular at mass level i.e. yakşas.
Lonkā in his bola - 56 has referred to Vipāka-Sūtra, BhagavatiSūtra which mention the yakṣa worship. “Jainism was not some kind of an unchanging monolith; it was conditioned by the spirit of time and space. Between c. 200B.C. and c 300A.D. changes took place at the ascetic and the popular levels. In the first case differences are visible in the doctrinal changes and in the development within the Jain monastic order. At the popular level, the expansion of Jain pantheon, beginning of idol worship and various developments in the fields of arts point out the directions in which Jain popular activities were growing”.
