World of Conquerors

Author(s): Natubhai Shah
Publisher: Natubhai Shah

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pointers. Nude figures in standing posture have been interpreted as Jain yogis in the relaxed standing meditational (kaayotsarga) position widely found in Jain iconography. Similar figures appear on some of the seals excavated at these sites. Seals have been found bearing the image of a bull, the emblem of Risabhdeva. Hooded figures may represent the seventh tirthankara Suparsvanatha, whose main iconographic characteristic is a hood formed by seven snakes. Attempts to interpret the Indus Valley script have been largely unsuccessful, though the historian Pran Nath Vidyalankar has read the inscription of seal No. 449 as jineshvar or jinesha, possibly representing the Jina or self-conqueror, a term used for the tirthankara. He also seems to have deciphered the incantation srim hrim klimek, used (but not exclusively) by the Jains (Shah D.T.1965: pp.559-560). If one accepts the interpretation of this, admittedly problematic, evidence, the existence of Jainism can be traced back to pre-Aryan, pre-Vedic times, and to the original Dravidian inhabitants of northern India, perhaps as far back as the seventh millenium BCE.
(iii) Scientific—Geologica: It appears that the last ice age ended about 8,000 to 10,000 years BCE. In the succeeding post glacial age it is thought that Aryan peoples began moving south towards India. They found a good level of civilisation at the borderline between the neolithic, or new stone age, and the chalcolithic age when copper and stone implements were in use side by side (Jain K.C. 1991: p.4). This is the period when the civilising work of the first tirthankara, reputed in Jain tradition to have introduced humanity to the new useful arts, could have taken place.
(iv) Philosophical Evidence: Certain Jain philosophical or cosmological principles suggest great antiquity. Three examples may make this clear: • The concept that life exists in all things, except limited range of pure matter, is
characteristic of Jain thought and seems to be of ancient origin; The concept of cyclical time is found in Buddhism and in other ancient religions; Buhler has referred to the third concept supporting the antiquity of Jain thought (Buhler 1908, Tr. By Burgess 1963: p.7). It is the identity or non-difference between a substance and its attributes. This has been modified by the later concept of 'relative pluralism' (anekaantavaada), a characteristic of Jainism seeing all facts from
multiple viewpoints. Undoubtedly, the Jain religion is of great antiquity. The simple fact is, however, that given the present state of our knowledge, any attempts to trace or date its early history are speculative.
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