THE RISE, DECLINE AND RENEWALS OF SRAMANIC RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS WITHIN INDIC CIVILISATION WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE EVOLUTION OF JAIN SRAMANIC CULTURE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INDIC CIVILIZATION
by BAL PATIL,
Member, Maharashtra State Minorities Commission,
Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai
PAPER READ IN
Conference on
Religions in Indic Civilisation
New Delhi
December 18 -21, 2003
Organised by
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
in collaboration with
International Association for the History of Religions and India International Centre,
New Delhi

Contents




PRE-ARYAN ROOTS...........................................................................................................4
MISLEADING STEREOTYPES ABOUT JAINISM................................................................5
CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA AND JAINISM........................................................................6
RADHA KUMUD MOOKERJI AND CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA........................................7
ASHOKA & JAINISM.............................................................................................................9
R. THAPAR , AND HISTORICAL SOURCES IN PURANAS AND VEDAS...........................9
E. H. CARR: WHAT IS HISTORY?......................................................................................10
PROF. M. WITZEL & VEDIC AND ITIHASA-PURANA TRADITION...................................12
RIGVEDIC TEXTS LIKE TAPE RECORDED RECITATION?.............................................13
FALSITY OF WITZEL’S VEDIC HISTORIOGRAPHY.........................................................14
PROF. H. BECHERT ON MAHAVAMSA............................................................................16
JAINISM IN CEYLON..........................................................................................................17
BACK TO WITZEL’S VEDIC HISTORIOGRAPHY..............................................................19
SRAMANIC JAIN RELIGION...............................................................................................20
RISHABHA, 1ST TIRTHAMKAR : HIS ANTIQUITY............................................................21
ASCETICISM AND RISHABHA’S SRAMANA CULTURE..................................................22
YOGA AND JAINISM..........................................................................................................23
SWASTIKA SIGN AND TIME COMPUTATION..................................................................24
RISHABHA AS EPOCH-MAKING JAIN SRAMANIC TIRTHAMKARA IN ITIHASA-PURANA.............................................................................................................................25
INDIA KNOWN AS BHARATVARSHA AFTER BHARATA SON OF RISHABHA AND REJECTION
OF THE THEORY THAT BHARATVARSHA IS KNOWN AFTER DUSHYANTA’S SON....................................................................................................................................26
PRE-VEDIC AND PRE-AYAN ORIGINS OF JAINISM......................................................28
JAINA ANTIQUITY IN VEDAS...........................................................................................28
KSATRIYA AND VRATYA TRADITION IN JAINISM.........................................................29
AHIMSA AND VEDIC CULTURE......................................................................................30
AHIMSA AND THE IDEA OF REBIRTH............................................................................31
VEGETARIANISM & AHIMSA IN BUDDHISM AND JAINISM..........................................32
JAINISM AND BRAHMANIC-HINDUISM..........................................................................33
TIRTHAMKARA AND THE CONCEPT OF WORSHIP IN JAINISM.................................34
SIVA, RUDRA AND RISHABHDEVA................................................................................35
RISHABHA, FIRST TIRTHAMKAR AND RUDRA.............................................................36
ARE JAIN NASTIKAS ?....................................................................................................38
WHY WORSHIP TIRTHAMKARS?...................................................................................38
EVOLUTION OF JAIN CONCEPT OF TEMPLE...............................................................39
EVOLUTION OF CHAITYA, AYATANA AS AN ABODE OF YAKSHA.............................39
CHAITYA TREE AND TREE WORSHIP...........................................................................40
YAKSHAS IN JAIN TRADITION........................................................................................41
BHAVANAM, YAKSA’S ABODE........................................................................................41
EARLIEST JINA IMAGE AND JAINA PANTHEON...........................................................43
AYAGAPATAS AND STUPA AT KANKALI TILA, MATHURA..........................................44
RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF AYAGAPATAS................................................................44
STUPAS PRECURSOR OF JAIN TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE........................................45
PRE-MAHAVIRA AND BUDDHA STUPAS......................................................................45
KURAL BY SAINT TIRUVALLUVAR & JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA................................46
SHANKARACHARYA & JAIN MATHAS..........................................................................47


© Bal Patil: The Rise, Decline And Renewals Of Sramanic Religious Traditions Within Indic Civilisation 2 .DE Edition 2 online magazine




RE-WRITING CHRONOLOGY OF ADI SHANKARACHARYA.............................................49
PATHASHALAS AND JAINA CONTRIBUTION TO LEARNING & EDUCATION O NAMAH SIDDHAM................................................................................................................50
SECULARISM HINDUTVA & JAINISM IN MODERN INDIA.............................................51
MISREPRESENTATION OF JAINISM.......................................................................... 52
SECULARISM & INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL PREAMBLE...............................................52
SUDARSHAN AND HINDU RASHTRA..........................................................................54
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE & SECULARISM....................................................................55
JAINS & ARTICLE 25 OF CONSTITUTION...................................................................57
MODERN MYTH OF HINDUISM..................................................................................58
ART.25 AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM...........................................................................59
SAVARKAR & HINDUTVA..........................................................................................60
HINDUTVA AND MINORITIES...................................................................................61
CONSTITUTIONAL SUBTERFUGE AND AMBEDKAR.....................................................62
SUPREME COURT ON HINDUTVA.............................................................................63
MAHAVIRA AND HIS MESSAGE OF AHIMSA..............................................................65
MAHAVIRA : MAN & HIS MISSION...........................................................................66
MAHAVIRA & HIS ‘ALLEGED’ MEAT-EATING.............................................................67
MAHAVIRA & BUDDHA...........................................................................................68
MAHAVIRA’S TEACHINGS.......................................................................................69
BHAGVAD GITA AND THEORY OF KARMA................................................................71
A NOTE ON THE HINDU VIEW OF SALVATION.........................................................71
“THE GITA AS IT WAS” Rediscovering the Original Bhagwadgita...............................73
FIVE JAIN MAHA VRATAS - GREAT VOWS...............................................................74
JAINA PRAYER......................................................................................................75
SYADVADA ANEKANTA : JAIN THEORY OF RELATIVITY OF TRUTH...........................76
TRANSHUMANISTIC MESSAGE OF JAINISM.............................................................77







THE RISE, DECLINE AND RENEWALS OF SRAMANIC RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS WITHIN INDIC CIVILISATION WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE EVOLUTION OF JAIN SRAMANIC CULTURE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INDIC CIVILIZATION.
by BAL PATIL,
Member, Maharashtra State Minorities Commission,*
Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai

JAINISM & BUDDHISM-SHRAMANIC RELIGIONS
PRE-ARYAN ROOTS
A
lmost all the scholars agree that Jainism has Pre-Aryan roots in the cultural history of India. As Dr. A. N. Upadhye remarked – “The origins of Jainism go back to the pre-historic times. They are to be sought in the fertile valley of Ganga, where they flourished in the past, even before the advent of Aryans with their priestly religion, a society of recluses who laid much stress on individual exertion, on practice of a code of morality and devotion to austerities, as means of attaining religious Summum Bonum.” (Jainism by Colette Caillat, A.N. Upadhye & Bal Patil, Macmillan, 1974)
The late Heinrich Zimmer, who is reputed to have been the greatest German Indologist of modern times, in his celebrated posthumous work, The Philosophies of India, conceded that there is truth in the Jain idea that their religion goes back to a remote antiquity, the antiquity in question being that of the pre-Aryan, so called Dravidian period, and that Jainism is the oldest of all Dravidian born philosophies and religions. He also psychologically demonstrated that Jain Yoga originated in pre-Aryan India, and has nothing to do with orthodox Brahmanism which simply appropriated it in later centuries.
Noel Retting, another Indologist, writes, "only in Jainism, of all the living religions, do we see a fusion of the primitive with the profound. It has preserved elements from the first stage of man's religious awareness, animism. It affirms the separateness of spirit from matter, even though our modern philosophers and religionists regard neither form of dualism as untenable. Despite the opinion of these men, Jainism is fundamentally scientific. And, it may very well be, contrary to the opinions of many anthropologists and students of comparative religion, the oldest living faith." And, Professor L. P. Tessitory is of opinion that "Jainism is of a very high order. Its important teachings are based upon science. The more the scientific knowledge advances the more the Jain teachings will be proven".
In fact, the Jain system of thought is so wonderfully consistent with modern realism and science that one may easily be tempted to question its antiquity, about which, however, there is now no doubt. As Dr. Walthur Schubring observes, "He who has a thorough knowledge of the structure of the world cannot but admire the inward logic and harmony of Jain ideas. Hand in hand with the refined cosmographical ideas goes a high standard of astronomy and mathematics." Dr. Hermann Jacobi also believes that "Jainism goes back to a very early period, and to primitive currents of religious and metaphysical speculation, which gave rise to the oldest Indian philosophies. They (the Jains) seem to have worked out their system from the most primitive notions about matter."
In the Buddhist scripture Majjhima Nikaya, Buddha himself tells us about his ascetic life and its ordinances which are in conformity with the Jain monk’s code of conduct. He says, "Thus far, SariPutta, did I go in my penance. I went without clothes. I licked my food from my hands. I took no food that was brought or meant especially for me. I accepted no invitation to a meal." Mrs. Rhys Davis has observed that Buddha found his two teachers Alara and Uddaka at Vaisali and started his religious life as a Jain.
In Dighanikaya’s Samanna Phal Sutta, the four vows of Lord Parshvanath (who flourished 250 years before Mahavira’s liberation) have been mentioned. Attakatha of Anguttara Nikaya has reference to Boppa Sakya a resident of Kapilvastu who was the uncle of Buddha and who followed the religion of the Nigganathas i.e. Jains.
Critical and comparative study has brought to light several words like ‘Asrava’, "Samvara’ etc., which have been used by Jains in the original sense but which have been mentioned in Buddhist Literature in figurative sense. On the basis of these words Dr. Jacobi has concluded that Jainism is much older than the religion of Buddha and therefore it is incorrect to imagine Jainism as the offshoot of Buddhism.
MISLEADING STEREOTYPES ABOUT JAINISM
Yet histories and encyclopaedias of world religions with a few exceptions fail to mention Jainism as a religion. There are pervasive misconceptions about the origin of Jainism, its relation with the Brahmanic, Vedic so-called- Hinduism, about Mahavira being the founder of Jainism, about its being an offshoot of Buddhism or Hinduism or its being a reformist sect of Hinduism. There are misrepresentations galore. It is overshadowed by Hinduism and Buddhism or if noticed at all it is mentioned in passing as one of the ancient IndiaN religious movements subsidiary to Buddhism.

Such is the context of the pervasive impact of the misleading Indian historiography from the deleterious effects of which even the most eminent historians, both right and left are not immune. As noted pertinently by the Aims of the Conference “One of the consequences of this failure is the



continuing hold of misleading stereotypes of the nature of Indic religious thought and practice.” I think this has a vital bearing on the devastatingly damaging impact of the misconceived Indological and ‘Oriental’ stereotypes on the Indian ethno-religious historiography so as to necessitate a paradigmatic revaluation.

This misinterpretation of history is compounded by what the doyen of Indian Indologists , Dr.R.G. Bhandarkar noted as to how “India has no written history. Nothing was known till within recent times of the political condition of the country, the dynasties that ruled over the different provisions which composed it, and the great religious and social revolutions it went through. The historical curiosity of the people was satiated by legends. What we find of a historical nature in the literature of the country before the arrival of the Mahomedans comes to very little.” P.i-ii (Early History of the Dekkan Down to the Mahomedan Conquest, 2nd Ed. 1983)

The date of the foundation of the Maurya dynasty by Chandragupta has been determined to be about 322 B.C. on the basis of the known dates of the corresponding Greek persons or events such as the invasion of Alexander the Great which brought the Greeks in contact with India or such historical fragments as are left by Megasthenes’s Ta Indika.

Even Buddha or Buddhism is no exception for such misrepresentations. It is incredible but true that S. Radhakrishnan in his Foreword to the volume brought out on the occasion of 2500th Anniversary of the Mahaparinirvana of the Buddha in 1956: 2500 Years of Buddhism (published by the Ministry of Information, Government of India, 1956 states:”The Buddha did not feel that he was announcing a new religion. He was born, grew up, and died a Hindu. He was re-stating with a new emphasis the ancient ideals of the Indo-Aryan civilization.”

Such is the common strategy of the historians, philosophers and academicians in dealing with the Indic Sramanic religious traditions. Issues are obscured by introducing irrelevancies and thus an attitude of contemptuous prejudice is provoked by exciting ridicule.

CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA AND JAINISM
But such distortions are not confined to Orientalist interpreters of ancient Indian history. I am quoting below an excerpt from The Age of Mauryas by the eminent historian Romila Thapar:
“Chandragupta is said to have accepted Jainism in his later years, and in fact to have abdicated the throne and become a wandering ascetic dying through slow starvation in the orthodox Jain manner. Considering the difficulties that he faced in making himself king and building an empire it is hardly likely that he would have abdicated at the end of his reign in order to become a wandering ascetic. It is possible though that he accepted the teachings of Mahavira and became a Jaina. This interest may be excused as originating in the fact that he was of low origin, a vaisya, and by accepting Jainism he eluded the contempt of

the higher caste nobility. Since the teachings of Mahavira were at this period, regarded more as an offshoot of Hinduism, an extreme discipline, and the Jainas themselves as a sub-sect of the ealier religion, we can discoutenance the above idea. The interest it would seem was largely intellectual. Accepting Jainism did not raise one’s social prestige in the eyes of high-caste Hindus whose social ethics were already being determined by caste rules.” (Italics supplied)
I am aware that this is an earlier historical reading by the eminent, liberal, progressive historian Romila Thapar. I am also aware that that her readings of Indian ancient history have progressed from her A History of India (Pelican 1966) to Early India :From the Origins to A.D. 1300 , Allen Lane, 2002)
In her A History of India (Vol.I) Thapar has perceptively noted that “much of the early history of India was reconstructed almost entirely from Sanskrit sources i.e. from material preserved in the ancient classical language”. (p.18) In her latest version “substantial changes in the readings of early Indian history” are made. Mauryan India is Thapar’s special field of historical study. That is why one is concerned to question her cavalier and even presumptuous remarks-so unhistorical in character- regarding Chandragupta.
I am quoting once again the particular sentence: “This interest may be excused as originating in the fact that he was of low origin, a vaisya, and by accepting Jainism he eluded the contempt of the higher caste nobility.” I simply fail to understand this judgemental remark on what Chandragupta did making a totally unhistorical presumption on his alleged inferiority complex as a Vaisya and even more questionable presumption that he did so to elude the contempt of “higher caste nobility”. One is almost led to wonder whether Chandragupta’s soul materialised by some transmigratory power before Romila Thapar to make such a guilty confession stating: “Well, Madam, you know how embarrassing it was to be a Vaisya with such glittering nobility around me!”
I am concerned to make an issue of such ‘historical’ interpretations or rather mis-interpetations to show how personal historiography of the historians, apparently not affected by any transparent cultural bias can go astray. But since the issue has been raised it must be dealt with in a rational historical manner. I cannot do better here than quote Dr.Radha Kumud Mookerji.
RADHA KUMUD MOOKERJI AND CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA
Dr.Mookerji has commented at length on the theory of the base birth of Chandragupta in his Chandragupta Maurya and His Times (1943):
“The theory of the base birth of Chandragupta Maurya was first suggested by the derivation which a commentator was at pains to find for the epithet Maurya as applied to Chandragupta by the Puranas.” Further after explaining how the commentator on Purana was wrong in explaining grammatically Maurya from Mura and how it is impossible to “to derive by any grammar Maurya as a direct formation from Mura” Dr.Mookerji states : “The derivative from Mura is Maureya. The term Maureya can be derived only from masculine Mura which is mentioned as a name of a gotra in a Ganapatha in Panini’s Sutra (IV. I, 151).


The commentator was more interested in finding a mother than in grammar! The only redeeming feature of the commentator is that not merely is he innocent of grammar and history; he is also innocent of any libel against Chandragupta. For he has not stated that Mura, the supposed mother of Chandragupta was a Sudra woman or a courtesan of the Nanda king…Thus even the commentator of the Purana cannot be held responsible for the theory of Chandragupta’s low origin.” (Pp.9-10)
Dr Mookerji makes a solemn invocation which should serve as a solace to one in search of sober history: “Heavens save us from commentators who supplement texts by facts of their own creation!” Well, this is precisely my watchword for my humble effort to trace the evolution of the Sramanic religious tradition of Jainism and Buddhism and its impact on the Indic civilisation.
Further to press home the conclusion from Jain and Buddhist sources Dr.Mookerji notes that the “Mahavamsa (a Ceylones Buddhist account of about 5th century AD) states that Chandragupta was ‘born of a family of Kshatriyas called Moriyas’ “(Moriyanam khattiyanam vamse jatam)”, and the Buddhist canonical work Digha Nikaya (II, 167) mentions the Kshatriya clan known as Moriyas of Pippalivana.
Even more monumental evidence, according to Dr.Mookerji, is derived from the Buddhist as well Jain tradition connecting the peacock, Mayura, with the Moriya or Maurya dynasty. Thus the Ashoka pillar at Nandangarh has been found to bear at its bottom below the surface of the ground the figure of a peacock while the same figure is repeated in several sculptures on the Great Stupa at Sanchi associated with Ashoka. Therefore Dr.Mookerji concludes that the “Buddhist and Jain tradition are at one in declaring for him (Chandragupta) a noble birth.” ((Pp.14-15) Ibid.
As noted above the date of the foundation of the Maurya dynasty by Chandragupta has been determined to be about 322 B.C. on the basis of the known dates of the corresponding Greek persons or events such as the invasion of Alexander the Great which brought the Greeks in contact with India or such historical fragments as are left by Megasthenes’s Ta Indika. Chandragupta Maurya’s ascention to the throne and his historicity is an important landmark or even a high watermark in the vague almost non-existent ancient Indian historical accounts.
I am emphasising the siginificance of the Chandragupta Maurya dynasty in ancient India because Chandragupta’s role was also crucial in the spread of Jaina religious and cultural traditions in the whole of South India. In a remarkable monograph Jainism or the Early Faith of Asoka with Illustrations of the Ancient Religions of the East From the Pantheon of the Indo-Scythians with A Notice on Bactrian Coins and Indian Dates by Edward Thomas F.R.S., read at the Meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, Feb.26, 1877 (published Trubner & Co, London, 1877) E.Thomas states re;Jaina Sramanic faith of Chandragupta:


“The testimony of Megasthenes would likewise seem to imply that Chandragupta submitted to the devotional teachings of the sermanas as opposed to the dotrine of the Brahmans. The passage in Strabo runs as follows: ‘That Chandragupta was a member of the Jaina community is taken by their writers as a matter of course…The documentary evidence to this effect is of comparatively early date, and apparently absolved from all suspicion…the testimony of Megasthenes would likewise seem to imply that Chandragupta submitted to the devotional teachings of the Sramanas…’ ”
When Bhadrabahu,, the last of the Sruta Kevali Jain Acharyas met Chandragupta Maurya in his court at Pataliputra and foretold him of the impending terrible twelve years famine Chandragupta abdicated his throne and joined Bhadrabahu who, collecting a body of twelve thousand disciples, started a grand exodus towards the south. As stated by Ramaswami Ayyangar and B.Sheshgiri Rao in their Studies in South Indian Jainism (1922):
“That Chandragupta, the Mauryan king, was a Jain and attended on Bhadrabahu during his last days and died twelve years after, doing penance on Chandragiri hill may be taken as historical facts. Evidence in favour of such a theory is overwhelming…To discredit the Sravana Belgola inscriptions discovered by Lewis Rice is to discredit the whole tradition and the legendary account of the Jains enshrined in Rajavalikathe, and it is highly hazardous for the historian to go so far.”
ASHOKA & JAINISM
So much for the Mauryan Jain mission in the South India. To revert to the enduring Sramanic and Jain influence in the Chandragupta Maurya dynasty and especially on Ashoka I would refer once again to Edward Thomas in this quest for historically credible Jainism. I would begin by taking the case of Ashoka and Buddhism. Edward Thomas’s primary object in the above-mentioned paper is to determine the “relative precedence of Jainism and Buddhism, as tried and tested by the ultimate determination of ‘the ultimate faith of Asoka” Thomas too had misgivings and a certain “crucial difficulty “ of his argument that Asoka’s early faith was Jainism.
But as stated by him “all doubts and obscurities in that direction may now be dissipated before Asoka’s own words, which he or his advisers took such infinite pains to perpetuate –under the triple phases of his tardy religious progress-on rocks and big stones, and more elaborately prepared Indian Lats or monoliths.”
Thomas also quotes Abul Fazl, the “accomplished minister of Akbar… known to have been largely indebted to the Jaina priests and their carefully preserved chronicles” from his Ain-i-Akbari “three very important entries, exhibited in the original Persian version quoted below, which establish: (1) that Asoka himself first introduced ‘JAINISM’ into the kingdom of Kashmir; (2) that ‘Buddhism’ was dominant there during the reign of Jaloka (the son and successor of Asoka);; and (3)that Brahmanism superseded Buddhism under Raja Sachinara…” which


evidence he takes “to infer that Asoka’s conversion to Buddhism occurred late in his life or reign” and that the “annals of Kashmir, on the other hand, more emphatically imply that either he did not seek to spread, or had not the chance or opportunity of propagating his new faith.”
Thomas also emphasizes that the “leading fact of Asoka’s introduction or recognition of the Jaina creed in Kashmir, above stated, does not however, rest upon the sole testimony of the Muhammadan author, but is freely acknowledged in the Brahmanical pages of the Rajatarangini.
R. THAPAR , AND HISTORICAL SOURCES IN PURANAS AND VEDAS
I think in any historical analysis it would be sobering to recall what E.H. Carr said about historical facts in his classic What Is History? Carr says that “the facts of history never come to us ‘pure’, since they do not and cannot exist in a pure form: they are always refracted trhough the mind of the recorder. It follows that when we take up a work of history, our first concern should be not with the facts it contains but the historian who wrote it.” And hence Carr supplements his first principle in the study of history that one should “study the historian” as a preliminary, by asking “Before you study the historian, study his historical and social environment.” (p.44) As put by Carr in a subtly ingenuous manner : “No document can tell us more than what the author of the document thought-what he thought had happened, what he thought ought to happen or would happen, or perhaps only what he wanted others to think he thought, or even only what he himself thought he thought.” (p.16)
Hence Carr notes “two important truths: first that you cannot fully understand or appreciate the work of the historian unless you have first grasped the standpoint from which he himself approached it; secondly, that the standpoint is itself rooted in a social and historical background. do not forget that, as Marx once said, the educator himself has to be educated; in modern jargon, the brain of the brain-washer has itself been washed. The historian before he begins to write history, is the product of history.” (Pp.39-40)
And in this context he points out how he was shocked to come across which he puts as “the only remark of Bertrand Russell I have ever seen which seemed to betray an acute sense of class: ‘There is on the whole, much less liberty in the world now than there was a hundred years ago.’” Commenting wryly on this Carr says “ I have no measuring-rod for liberty, and do not how to balance the lesser liberty of few against the greater liberty of many.”
Another pitfall of historians socalled is noted by Carr and this occurs when he is rash enough to pass moral opinions on persons and events long past. “The more serious ambiguity”, says Carr, “arises over the question of moral judgments on public actions. Belief in the duty of the historian to pronounce moral judgments on his dramatis personae has a long pedigree.” (p.76) This is because as Carr quotes Prof.Knowles ‘the historian is not a judge, still less a hanging judge’, and goes on to quote Bernadette Croce that ‘Those who on the plea of narrating


history, bustle about as judges, condemning here and giving absolution there, because they think this is the office of history…are generally recognised as devoid of historical sense.’” (p.77)
If that is the case with available ‘historical records’ it would be most formidable to write history if there are no written records, or only myths, puranas and traditions of geneologies or pure scriptures passed on from generation to generation by mouth like the Vedic srutis.
It is in this context one can be critical of R.Thapar’s judgmental presumption as to why Chandragupta was led to embrace Jainism, and also appreciate her paradigmatic shift in historical interpretation notably in Interpreting Early India wherein a radically fresh framework of historical assumptions based on Itihasa-Purana as well as Vamsavalis and geneologies is resorted to albeit not as rigorously thoroghgoing as one would be led to expect because still there is a certain leaning towards the quintessentially Brahmanic-Vedic-Buddhistic assessment of certain crucial aspects of ancient Indian history.
E.H. CARR: WHAT IS HISTORY?
Yet it is a pleasant surprise to find Thapar quoting E.H. Carr as the classic “summation of the role of historian “ that “the function of historian is neither to love the past nor to emancipate himself from the past, but to master and understand it as the key to understanding the of the present. Great history is written precisely jwhen the historian’s vision of the past is iluminated by the insight into the problems of the present…The function of the history is to promote a profounder understanding of both past and present through the inter-relation between the two.” (What is History? pp. 20,31,62) Perhaps Carr could be quoted for a fitting finale to such historiography when he observes:”Good historians I suspect, whether they think about it or not, have the future in their bones. Besides the question ‘Why?’ the historian also asks the question’Whither?’” (p.108 ibid.)
Notwithstanding her slip on Chandragupta Maurya Thapar acknowledges in Interpreting Early India that “the picture which emerges of the indigenous view of religion from historical sources of the early period is rather different. The prevalent religious groups referred to are two, Brahmanism and Sramanism with a clear distinction between them. They are organizationally separate, had different sets of beliefs and rituals and often disagreed on social norms. That this distinction was recognized is evident from the edicts of the Mauryan king Asoka, as well as by those who visited India and left accounts of what they had observed, as, for example, Megasthenes, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fa Hsien and Hsuan Tsang, and Alberuni.”
Thapar also notes how Patanjali, the grammarian refers to the “hostility between Brahmanism and Sramanism as innate as is that between the snake and mongoose.” But in all the historical analysis of the demarcation of Sramanism from Brahmanism and how “a reaction to this last group (of the Buddhist and the


Jain sangha) which motivated the increasing interest in an itihasa-purana. Both the Buddhists and the Jainas had shown a sense of centering their sects in avowedly historical events which imparted a certain historicity and added to the intellectual strength of their institutions ”(p.63, 161), Thapar always clubs together in the Sramanic term Jainism and Buddhism-particularly with the term Buddhism always claiming precedence (!) and there is no suggestion as to how Sramanic culture or its anti-Brahmanic evolution began in pre-Buddhist ancient India co-eval with the evolution of Vedic Brahmanism as recorded in the Vedas, Puranas and the geneologies as well as the vamsavalis etc. which record Thapar takes to be the “one in which historical consciousness is embedded: myth, epic and geneology…” (p.138 ibid)
Again the same, perhaps unwitting historicist preference for Buddhist-cum-Jain interpretation of certain key concepts of the Sramanic culture as distinctly anti-Brahmanic, or anti-Vedic such as ahimsa is evident in Thapar’s criticism of the Hindu hegemonic encroachment of the essentially Sramanic values of non-violence and tolerance. That “ahimsa as an absolute value is characteristic of certain Sramanic sects and less so of Brahmanism. The notion appears in the Upanishads but it was the Budddhists and the Jains (emphasis supplied) who first made it foundational to their teaching. That Brahmanism and Sramanism were recognized as distinct after the period of the Upanishads further underlines the significance of ahimsa to Sramanic thinking.” (p.72, ibid) As is clear there is no attempt here to trace the conceptual evolution of ahimsa as a characteristic of the Sramanic-Jain culture in pre-Buddhist India as noted by eminent Indologists as will be discussed later in this paper
However, Thapar makes a pertinent observation regarding the fundamental differences between Brahmanic and Sramanic systems and makes a historically welcome suggestion that “It might in fact be a worthwhile exercise to reconstruct Brahmanism from the reference to it in Sramanic amd other non-Brahmanical sources.” (p.63, Ibid) This is a welcome opportunity to me because the basic theme which I am concerned to develop in my paper is the Religions in the Indic Civilisation particularly on the topic of historical and contemporary studies: the Rise, Decline and Renewals of Shramanic Religious Traditions Within Indic Civilisation with particular reference to the evolution of Jain Sramanic culture and its impact on the Indic civilization.
Borrowing the historically challenging clue provided by Thapar I would rephrase her sugestion regarding the reconstruction of Brahmanism with reference to Sramanic and other non-Brahmanic sources I would propose the theme of my paper as a reconstruction of Sramanic Jain culture from references to it in Vedic, Puranic as well as non-Brahmanical sources. But before doing that it would be necessary to refer and discuss certain academic questions raised by Michael Witzel in his paper On Indian Historical Writing presented to the Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies 2, 1990, 1-57.



PROF. M.WITZEL & VEDIC AND ITIHASA-PURANA TRADITION
Prof.Witzel begins by questioning the generally held view such as by Pargiter and even ‘nationalistic’ historians like R.C. Majumdar that “India has no sense of history” and that, “indigenous historical writing has been almost completely absent until fairly recent times” except in Rajatarangini (History of Kashmir) and summarily rejects these contentions as “somewhat rash statements”.
Witzel is sceptical of the the legendary history “composed by Brahmins” (Purana) as “mutually contradictory” and contends that such sources have been used of historians such as R. Thapar representing “a patchwork of data gleaned from other texts, such as the Vedas and the Epics (Ramayana & Mahabharata). Nevertheless, they have been used uncritically, e.g. by some historians, suchas R.Thapar, and by modern archaeologists as materials to establish their identifications of particular pre-historic cultures.” Then considering the “idea of geneological history” because the “puranas are based on a framework of geneological nature” Witzel goes on to question the view held by Pargiter in his Ancient Indian Historical Tradition maintaining that the superiority of the "ksatriya tradition" (preserved, according to him, more or less, in the Mahabharata and Ramayana) above the Vedic evidence and has failed to recognize that much of the genealogies of the Puranas were extracted from the Vedas. Consequently, he maintains that the “Puranic accounts are proved by whatever scraps of evidence we can find in the various Vedic texts.” (Italics supplied)

In accusing Pargiter summarily Witzel himself appears to be guilty of the rashness because Pargiter, who was a Judge by profession, is quite careful in qualifying his dependence on the Puranic and geneological evidence as will be clear from his following observation in the Chapter on ‘Arguments from Vedic Literature’ in his Ancient Indian Historical Tradition:

“These considerations show that the geneologies have strong claims to acceptance. This does not mean that they are complete and altogether accurate, because no human testimony is free from defects and errors; and it has been shown in the preceding pages, and more will appear in the following pages, that there are defects, gaps and errors in them, especially when taken singly, but many of these blemishes can be corrected by collating the various texts, and others can be remedied by statements found elsewhere. Nevertheless it is quite clear that they are genuine accounts and are substantially trustworthy. They give us history as handed down in tradition by men whose business it was to preserve the past; and they are far superior to historical statements in the Vedic literature, composed by brahmans who lacked the historical sense and were little concerned with mundane affairs.” (p.125)

Witzel, while he makes a summary statement that “virtually no such geneology, in India or elsewhere, is free from tinkering, interpolation”, still is prepared to to to give credence to R.Thapar’s opinion that although there are some problems for the acceptability of lineage history and that the geneologies have been “improved” or tampered with “the idea of geneology is important.”



Yet with all such reservations and his obsessive faith in the Vedic records which Witzel concedes “that the historical material in the Rigveda does not consist of clear narrations, but of historical allusions: there is no ‘logical’ development describing successive actions or the story of a myth, only disjointed allusions to facts well known to contemporary listeners… Thus the myths, the ritual and certainly the contemporary history have to be pieced together from stray references, and these, too, were addressed to people who knew the events well.”

RIGVEDIC TEXTS LIKE TAPE RECORDED RECITATION?

It also needs to be noted that Witzel’s faith in the Rigvedic texts and their oral transmission through the ages is more Brahmanic than perhaps the Brahmins themselves. According to him the evidence of the Rigveda is as solid as the evidence of actual inscriptions. As he puts it: “Right from the beginning, in Rigvedic times, elaborate steps were taken to insure the exact reproduction of the words of the ancient poets. As a result, the Rigveda still has the exact same wording in such distant regions as Kashmir, Kerala and Orissa, and even the long-extinct musical accents have been preserved. Vedic transmission is thus superior to that of the Hebrew or Greek Bible, or the Greek, Latin and Chinese classics. We can actually regard present-day Rgveda-recitation as a tape recording of what was first composed and recited some 3000 years ago. In addition, unlike the constantly reformulated Epics and Puranas, the Vedic texts contain contemporary materials. They can serve as snapshots of the political and cultural situation of the particular period and area in which they were composed… As they are contemporary, and faithfully preserved, these texts are equivalent to inscriptions.”

And further “It is well known that much of historical information in the Vedic texts is contemporaneous and that these text have been unaltered for more than 2000 years (and have, in fact, transmitted word by word, including the otherwise long lost tonal accents of early Sanskrit) while bardic tradition, such as finally recorded in the Mahabharata and the Puranas was prone to constant re-creation by the reciting poet/bard….” (Italics supplied) Clearly Witzel is more loyal than the king himself!

He is so carried away by his enthusiasm that he is not prepared to give any credence even to the ancient inscriptions which he terms as “another, and indeed the major source for Indian history used since the mid of the last century, have been the thousands of inscriptions on rocks and copper plates. They are so well known that I merely mention the category here. To them, of course, applies the factor, mentioned above, of hyperbole as well. In the praçastis, constituting the first, non-technical parts of inscriptions, the poets tried to praise the local king "to the heavens".(Italics supplied)

While Witzel has such unshakeable faith in the perpetually pristine quality of the Rigvedic text he makes an about-turn when responding to an allegation than “the Indians were not interested in historical changes in their language”. He states quite confidently that “This again, is a rather limited view, instigated by the Brahmanical interest in the unchangeability (aksara) of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as the sacred language, the language of the gods, simply "cannot" change. The gods



speak the same Sanskrit as we indeed should, nowadays, instead of Prakrit or Hindi. Panini, when using chandas, thus refers to the sacred language, not to the laukika…” One wonders whether he took a pause to consider whether the same instigation in the “Brahmanical interest in the unchangeability (aksara) of Sanskrit” (Italics supplied) could not be operative in his infallibility of the original Vedic texts. Surely Brahmanic interest given its perennial purity as ordained by the Vedas cannot be one in Vedas and other in Puranas and the construction of geneologies.

It must be pointed out that even in Rajatarangini Witzel has misgivings about the impartiality of the poet because he has devoted a major portion to the ruling monarch. Nor are the poetic or Buddhist works like Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa and Gopalarajvamsavali likely to be exceptions on the historical criteria Witzel is keen to apply to the Itihasa-Purana tradition and thus to disqualify them as historical sources. It is also not borne out by the historical records that a continuous historical tradition was disrupted because of Muslim domination “the possibility for a continuous historical tradition has been disrupted by intervening Muslim periods of government. The picture of a tradition of historical writing as found only at the rims of the subcontinent therefore may be misleading. It is precisely these areas that have (with the exception of Kashmir) been spared disruptions by Muslim domination.” (Italics supplied, Ibid.)

FALSITY OF WITZEL’S VEDIC HISTORIOGRAPHY

Such presumptions clearly not only betray a historically embarrassing lacuna exhibing pre-conceived neo-Brahmanic Hindutva notions in Witzel’s Vedic scholarship which is not found even in a so-called ‘nationalistic’ historian like R.C. Majumdar who did not hesitate to discover in Shankaracharya’s advaita-monotheism - Islamic influence which was prevalent on the Malabar coast in 8th century A.D. According to R.C.Majumdar ”Sankara’s monism was based upon the Islmaic creed which he had learnt from the fore-fathers of the Moplahs, Navayats and Labbes of South India.” ( p.228, Readings in Political History of India, (B.R. Publishing, Delhi, 1976)

“What we find of a historical nature in the literature of the country before the arrival of the Mahomedans comes to very little.” R.G. Bhandarkar, P.i-ii (Early History of the Dekkan Down to the Mahomedan Conquest, 2nd Ed. 1983)”
The utter falsity of Witzel’s hypothesis of Muslim disruption of “continuous historical tradition” in India can be shown by taking the example of Abul Fazl’s Ain-e-Akbari which narrates how Asoka sent an ambassador to Kashmir to establish Jainism there. Coming to mediaeval Muslim rule Dr. Tara Chand notes not only the salutary Muslim influence on Hindi language as evident in its vocabulary, grammar, metaphor, prosody and style, but as pointed out by him “What is true of Hindi is true of Marathi, Bengali and more so of Panjabi and Sindhi” and that “In Bengal we find that Bengal first developed as an independent literary medium not under Hindu but under Muslim rule. The Hindu courts of Bengal gave no encouragement to their native tongue. Critical opinion holds that if Hindu kings had continued to enjoy independence, Bengali would scarcely have received royal patronage.” (The Influence of Islam on Indian Culture, I, p.212)




With all his abiding reliance on the Rigvedic sources Witzel has misgivings because historical material in the Rigveda does not consist of clear narrations, but of historical allusions: “there is no ‘logical’ development describing successive actions or the story of a myth, only disjointed allusions to facts well known to contemporary listeners… Thus the myths, the ritual and certainly the contemporary history have to be pieced together from stray references, and these, too, were addressed to people who knew the events well.” And further that “there has been a constant misuse of Vedic sources and some historical and pseudo-historical materials, not only by nationalist politicians, but also by archaeologists and historians. Most serious is the acceptance of much later materials as authoritative sources for the Vedic period.” In this he includes “not only to the Puranas and Epics, but also to the Vedic literature which constitutes the “bulk of the post-Rigvedic texts”, since “the later Vedic texts contain stanzas and prose… of a later period.”

Yet undeterred by his own Vedic historiographical model Witzel firmly founded on his basic principle that “Clearly, Rigvedic history will have to be reconstructed principally from the Rigveda itself.”, and as noted in a detailed criticism of Witzel’s Vedic historical hypothesis by Shrikant G. Talgeri in his The Rigveda A Historical Analysis Aditya Prakashan, 1997 Delhi : “But, after failing miserably in his efforts to produce any direct evidence from the Rigveda, Witzel goes scouring for evidence in later and later texts and finally claims to have struck gold in the BaudhAyana Srauta SUtra: “there is the following direct statement contained in the (admittedly much later) BSS, 18.44:397.9 sqq which has once again been over-looked, not having been translated yet: ‘Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-PañcAla and the KASI-Videha. This is the Ayava (migration). (His other people) stayed at home in the West. His people are the GAndhArI, ParSu and AraTTa. This is the AmAvasava (group)’.” (Emphasis supplied)

Therefore Talageri concludes : “This incredible assertion represents the most blatant violation of the most basic principle laid down by Witzel himself: ‘there has been a constant misuse of Vedic sources and some historical and pseudo-historical materials, not only by nationalist politicians, but also by archaeologists, and historians.’ Most serious is the acceptance of much later materials as authoritative sources for the Vedic period.” because Witzel, on the one hand, strongly indicts “the acceptance of much later materials as authoritative sources for the Vedic period”, and, on the other, advocates the evidence of an ‘admittedly much later’ text in overriding that of all the previous texts, including the Rigveda itself!” (Emphasis supplied)

Talgeri who concedes that “Witzel’s basic approach to the Rigveda closely parallels our own and that he recognizes the unique importance of the Rigveda: apart from archaeology, our principal source for the early period must be the Rigveda…”, is constrained to indict Witzel stating that he “violates every single norm and basic principle, set up by himself, in the analysis of the Rigveda. And yet, he manages to get nowhere. The Rigveda, basically, refuses to yield to his cajoling.”


That Witzel’s Rigvedic historiography is fraught with internal contradictions is clear because he himself cannot follow the logic of his own parameters of historical research nor his hypothetical reliance on a few writings such as the Nepalese Gopalarajavamsavali, Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, and Ceylonese Buddhist chronicles of 4th and 5th century A.D. Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa (free from Muslim dynastic disruption) is convincing as shown above.
PROF. H.BECHERT ON MAHAVAMSA
Wetzel has mentioned that H.Bechert’s article on the Beginnings of Indian Historical Writing was not available to him. However I have come across a rejoinder by Prof. H. Bechert as Response to Venerable Professor Dhammavihari's "Sri Lankan Chronicle Data" published in Vol.10, 2003 of Journal of Buddhist Studies . Commenting on Mahavamsa Prof.Bechert says “The later classical chronicle of ancient Sri Lanka, viz, the Mahavamsa, is a rather elaborated work. It is necessary to analyze its composition in order to evaluate its contents. It is a combination of (1) a Buddhist work that was written down for the edification of its readers, (2) a work of artificial poetry (kavya) in the Indian tradition, and (3) a work of national Sinhala historiography written and handed down by Buddhist monks, incorporating historical facts as well as mythological elements.”
“Thus the Mahavamsa represents in these chapters - and partly in other chapters as well - a fourth element, viz, it incorporates the national epic of the Sinhala people which may be compared with the Iliad of the ancient Greeks, the Nibelung epic of mediaeval Germany, etc. All these poems combine historical reflections with mythology in one text.
“We must not understand these chapters of the Mahavamsa as historical records in the modern sense of the word, particularly because this work was composed by the end of the 5th century C.E., i.e. more than 600 years after Dutthagamani who ruled from 161-137 B.C.E (Italics supplied)
Bechert also notes that “Original Buddhism was rightly characterized by Max Weber in his famous work on the sociology of religion as: "a quite specific, refined soteriology for intellectuals... a specifically unpolitical and antipolitical class religion, or, more accurately, a religious learned teaching of an itinerant, intellectually schooled mendicant order of monks.
“It is necessary to understand that original Buddhism was not conceived as a religion of the masses, but early Buddhists were one religious community amongst a considerable number of religious movements including the followers of Vedic tradition, Ajivikas, Jains etc.” (Italics supplied throughout)
JAINISM IN CEYLON
It would be relevant here to give a short account of the presence of Jainism in Ceylon centuries before Buddhism. Dr.Bhagchandra Jain has given authoritative evidence of Jainism in Ceylon in his Jainism in Buddhist Literature, with a Foreward by Dr.Hira Lal Jain which is his Thesis approved for the degree of


Ph.D. of the Vidyodaya University of Ceylon : “Jainism crossed India from south in about the eighth century B.C. if not earlier, and became one of the important religions of Ceylon, which was known in those days by the name of Lanka Ratnadvipa or Simhala. (Mahavamsa, 10. 53-59 (tran)..Mahavamsa, pp. 67..ibid. xxxiii. 43-44..ibid, xxxiii. 79.)”

As recounted by Dr.Bhagchandra Jain: “The Mahavamsa, the best-known and most authoritative Ceylonese Chronicle in Pali verse, refers to the existence of Jainism in Ceylon even before the arrival of Buddhism…. The five hundred families of heretical beliefs and the construction of Viharas to the Niganthas on behalf of the king of Lanka, Pandukabhaya, indicate clearly that Jainism was a living religion in Ceylon during his reign. Pandukabhaya's period, deduced on the basis of the date of Buddha's death as 544 B.C., is supposed to be 438-368 B. C. Jainism had apparently been introduced to Ceylon before Pandukabhaya. It could have been even before the arrival of Vijaya. One may wonder whether a name like Arittha (i, e. that of Devanampiya Tissa's minister) had any connection with the Jaina Tirthankara of that name. Mahavamsa, ibid. 10. 65. (Italics supplied)


And further: “Jainism continued to exist even after the establishment of Buddhism in the Island. Its existence during the first century B. C. is recorded in the Mahavamsa. It is said that after a battle with the Tamila, king Vatthagamini Abhaya who was defeated fled out of the city. A Nigantha named Giri saw him and cried out loudly. ‘"The great black Simhal is running away"’ (palayati mahakala Simhalo ti bhusam ravi). When the great king heard this he thought ‘"If my wish be fulfiled I will build a Vihara here"’ (sidhe mama manorathe viharam karessam) ibid. xxxiii. 43-44. Hence, after a few years when he drove away the Damila Dathika from Anuradhapura and regained his throne, he destroyed the Jaina monastery and built Abhayagiri Vihara in that place. ibid, xxxiii. 79.”

As further noted by Dr.Jain

“Jaina tradition takes the history of Jainism in Ceylon to Anera anterior to that reflected by the Ceylon Chronicles. According to Jaina records, the Yaksas and Raksasas who inhabited Ceylon prior to its Aryanization by Vijaya were not only human beings with a well developed civilization but also Jainas by faith (See, Harivamsapurana; Pauma Cariu, etc).

“The Vividhatirthakalpa mentions that at Trikutagiri in Kiskindha of Lanka there was magniflcient Jain temple which was dedicated by Ravana, for the attainment of supernatural powers (Kiskindhayam Lankayah patalankayam Trikutagrirau Srisantinathah). To fulfil a desire of Mandodari, the principal queen, Ravana is said to have erected a Jaina statue out of jewels and this, it is said, was thrown into the sea when he was defeated by Ramachandra. Sankara, a king of Kalyananagara of Kannada, came to know about this statue and he recovered it from the bottom of sea with the help of Padmavatidevi, prominent Goddess of Jainas.” (Vividhatirthakalpa, pp. 93.)

Dr.Jain also has given a very important piece of evidence regarding the origin of famous image of Parshwanath at Shirpur (Maharashtra State, India) (known as Antariksha Parshwanath ) which has been a matter of a century-old legal



battle for the possession and management of the temple trust between the Digambara and Shwetambara. As noted by him: “It is said that the statue of Parsvanatha which is worshipped even now at Sripura Antariksa (India) was brought by Mali and Sumali Vidyadhara from Lanka. Vividhatirthakalpa, p.102 Another statue of Parsvanatha found in the caves of Terapura is also said to be from Lanka. Brahatkathakosa of Harisena, p. 200 The Karakanducariu describes how Amitavega, a Jaina king of Malaya, used to visit Lankadvipa as an intimate friend of Ravana who built a Jaina temple in Malaya. Karkandu cariu, pp. 44-69. This Malaya can be identified with Malaya, the name of the central hill country of Ceylon.”

Thus Dr.Jain concludes. “These references seem to point out that Jainism existed in-Ceylon even before the birth of the Nigantha nataputta. Vibhisana, the younger brother of Ravana, who was a follower of Jainism according to Jain tradition and literature, is referred to as the tutelary Yaksa of Ceylon (Vibhisanastamraparaniyam) in the Mahamayuri, a magical text of Northern Buddhists which was translated into Chinese in the fourth century A. D. Vibhisana is still worshipped at Kelaniya and is supposed to be one of the four guardian deities of the Island.

“Although the supremacy which Buddhism achieved in Ceylon could have led to the suppression of Jainism and incidents similar to the destruction of Giri's monastry by Vatta-Gamini Abhaya could have occurred at different times, Jainism did not disappear from Ceylon till at least after the eighth century. About the tenth century A. D. (Mahamayuri, ed. by Sylviam Levi, JA. 1915, pp.40; cf. The Society of the Ramayana, p. 68) Muni Yasahkirti was requested by the then king of Ceylon to improve the state of Jainism in the island. (Jaina Silalekha Sangraha, p. 133)”

Therefore Dr.Jain concludes “This shows that Jainism not only was in existence at that time in Ceylon, but it also enjoyed the patronage of Sinhala kings of Ceylon.”

As regards the Jaina monuments in Ceylon, Dr. Jain further quotes the view of S. Parnavitana, an authoritative scholar on Ceylon Archaeology, as relevant:

"No remains of any Jaina monuments have ever been found in Ceylon. The earliest Stupas and Viharas of Jainism did not differ from those of Buddhism so much so, that without the evidence of inscriptions or of iconography it would be extremely difficult to differentiate between the two. Jain iconography had not yet developed in the times that we are dealing with. In the period during which this religion was prevalent in Ceylon, there were no monuments built of durable materials. Moreover, when Jainism disappeared, their places of worship must have been appropriated by the Buddhists as it happened with regard to the monastery of Giri, and any traces of the earlier faith would certainly have been obliterated in this way. Some of the earliest unidentified stupas of small dimensions may, however, be Jaina in origination." Pre-Buddhist Religious Beliefs, JRAS. (Ceylon), Vol. xxxi, No. 82, 1929, p. 325,)


I have extensively quoted the Ceylonese-Buddhist sources as noted by Dr.Bhagchandra Jain because this evidence has a definite credibility as belonging to Itihasa-Purana tradition and which has also a pertinent relevance to



the refutation of the infallilibility of the Rigvedic sources as argued by Witzel I am endeavouring to present

BACK TO WITZEL’S VEDIC HISTORIOGRAPHY

To revert to Witzel: However, Witzel notes that “Fortunately, the Jainas and Buddhists preserved their texts much better. The oldest in Indian mss. of the subcontinent, outside of Nepal, are those of the Jaina Bhandars of Gujarat and Rajasthan. At Jaisalmer, for example, as my friend A. Wezler told me (1974), the mss. are kept in a cave under the temple in large steel cases that must have been welded inside the cave as they are bigger than the small entrance of the room.”

Finally Witzel concludes: “In short, the lack of historical writings and the alleged lack of historical sense is due, in large measure, more to the accidents of medieval history than to the religious and philosophical tenets of Indian civilization”. It would be difficult to make any logically intelligible sense out of this sweeping observation which takes in its purview the entire field of the “the religious and philosophical tenets of Indian civilization”. It opens a floodgate of the entire course of Indian history. Nor has he taken the trouble either to specify what those “religious and philosophical tenets of Indian civilization” or “accidents of medieval history” are, except perhaps the disruptions in large parts of the Indian sub-continent allegedly caused by the Muslim incursions in the smooth course of Indian geneological narrations which hypothesis, in any case, is simply indefensible as a valid historiographical parameter.

One suspects that his failure to sustain his Rigvedic historiographical model with its built-in contradiction to its logically and historically credible conclusion has somehow led Witzel to make such flagrantly irrelevant remark which is totally out of character. In any case Witzel is back to square one of Indian historiography properly speaking . His own foregoing analysis shows that he is himself in two minds about it. If Itihasa-Purana have been tampered with by Brahmanical bias the same charge can be levelled against the Rigvedic sources transmitted in their pristine glory in three millennia.

Yet the question remains: If the Brahmanic ideology was so meticulous in maintaining unaffected, unaltered their original heritage how come it that certain glaring loopholes remained in the “historical allusions” which prove a stumbling block even to Witzel? Either Witzel is right or wrong:either way I shall have my ground cleared for the exploration of my theme of reconstructing the evolution of Sramanic culture right from the inception of the Vedas and even in pre-Vedic times and through the Itihasa-Purana religious tradition and the geneologies.This is because of certain uncertainties in the Vedic lore as also in the Puranic and mythic chronicles: To recall Witzel once again “Rigveda does not consist of clear narrations, but of historical allusions: there is no ‘logical’ development describing successive actions or the story of a myth, only disjointed allusions to facts well known to contemporary listeners… Thus the myths, the ritual and certainly the contemporary history have to be pieced together from




stray references, and these, too, were addressed to people who knew the events well.”

And if Witzel is wrong, as he certainly proves himself to be, I shall eat my cake and have it too because then Epic and Puranic sources too can come to my rescue to prove my Sramanic hypothesis. Whichever way one looks at the Vedic, Epic and Puranic ancient chronicles, in lieu of the proper history in the Western sense, if the balance of evidence is in favour of the Sramanic evolution, as I hope to present I can have the satisfaction, at least, of having argued my case in good faith.

SRAMANIC JAIN RELIGION

What is most significant is that Jainism has succeeded in its history of Three Thousand Years in preserving down to the present its separate religions identity. It is a unique religions system having its own philosophy, mythology, ethics, and rituals. It has its own deities, gurus and scriptures, its own temples, places of worship and pilgrimage, and its own festivals.

The designation ‘Jain” is applied to approximately four million members of India’s most ancient sramana or non-Vedic religion traditions. It is really difficult, nay, impossible to fix a particular date for the origin of Jainism. To the Jainas, Jainism has been revealed again and again in the eternity of time by innumerable Tirthamkars.

Of the present age, the first Tirthamkars was Rishabha and the last two were Parsvanatha and Mahavira. Mahavira is the twenty fourth Tirthamkar in the present half of the Avasarpini – descending or regressive-half of the Jain cosmic time cycle. According to Jain cosmological tradition ther will be twenty four Jinas or Tirthamkars in each half-cycle.

These cosmic half-cycles of the Jain universe are two, the Avasarpini- descending –and the Utsarpini- ascending each with six sub-divisions. Together these two half –cycles constitute a cosmic time unit know as Kalpa. The Utsarpini half-cycle of time marks a period of gradual evolution and the Avasarpini that of the gradual devolution or decline in human innocence and happiness, bodily strength and stature , span of life and the length of the age itself.

Conditions in the First , Second and Third ages in each time circle are known as those of a Bhogabhumi- happy,enjoyment based,entirely dependent on nature. Life in the other three ages is described as being that of a Karmabhumi based on individual and collective effort. The Fourth age of either cycle is supposed to be the best from the point of view of human civilization and culture. It is this age that produces a numbers of Tirthamkars and other great personages.







The Jain universe is without a beginning or an end, being everlasting and eternal. The Utsarpini and Avasarpini follow directly upon one another, pendulum like, in unbroken sucession. These half-cycles each last for a vast but finite number of years. The life expectancy of human beings dwelling in the Karma-bhumis increases with each stage of the Utsarpini, and correspondingly decreases with each stage of Avasarpini.

RISHABHA, 1ST TIRTHAMKAR : HIS ANTIQUITY

The first Tirthamkar of the Avasarpini time cycle was Rishabha. Rishabha is said to be the harbinger of human civilization. He inaugurated the Karmabhumi
(age of action) founded the social order, family system, institutions of marriage, of law and order and justice and of state and government; taught to mankind the cultivation of land, different arts and crafts, reading, writing and arithmetic and built villages, towns and cities. In short, Rishabha pioneered the framework for human civilization and culture.

Rishabhadeva or Rishabhanatha is also known as Iksvaku, Swayambhu and Mahadev. He had two daughters and a hundred sons. After having renounced worldly possession he took to Sramanic asceticism and did severe penance. He attained Kaivalya jnana (Supreme enlightenment) and became an Arhat or Jina at what is a now Prayaga (Allahabad).

Rishabha’s antiquity may be guessed from the historical and archaeological sources, The yogic, Sramanic and anti-Vedic and Pre-Aryan aspects of the Jain tradition can be traced to Indus Valley civilization which flourished six to eight thousand years ago. Nude standing images found in the Indus Valley ruins bear a striking resemblance to the oldest Jain sculpture. There may be a link in the bullseals of Indus and the bull –insignia-lancchana congizant –sign, characteristic of Rishabhanatha.

Prof. Ram Prasad Chanda, who supervised Indus Valley excavations, states in his article Mohen-jo-Daro (Sindh, Five Thousand years ago) in Modern Review August, 1932.”Not only the seated deities on some of the Indus seals are in Yoga posture and bear witness to the prevalence of Yoga in the Indus Valley in that remote age, the standing deities on the seals also show Kayotsarga (abandonment of the body, a standing or sitting posture of meditation) of Yoga . The Kayotsarga posture is peculiarly Jain. It is a posture not of sitting but of standing , In the Adi Purana Book XV III, Kayotsarga posture is described in connection with the penance of Rishabha or Vrashabha,”


In his Indus Civilization and Hindu Culture, the eminent scholar, P.R.Deshmukh says:”The first Jain Tirthamkar belonged to Indus civilization. The Indus Valley deities were nude. The Jains subtained that culture and
worshipped nude Tirthamkars”.






Dr.S.Radhakrishnan affirms that “The Bhagavata Purana endorses the view that Rishabha was the founder of Jainism. There is evidence to show that so far back as the first century B.C. there were people who were worshipping Rishabhadeva, the first Tirthamkar. There is no doubt that Jainism prevailed even before Vardhamana Mahavira, or Parsvanatha. The Yajurveda mentions the names of three Tirthamkars-Rishabha. Ajitnatha and Aristanemi” ( Indian Philosophy, P.287)

Another scholar P.C.Roy Choudhury states in his Jainism in Bihar; ”Not much research is possible in the pre-historical age as to the role Bihar played in the story of Jainism. But some of the ancient Jain scriptures mention that Jainism had been preached in Magadha (Bihar) by Lord Rishabha at the end of stone age and the beginning of the agricultural age. At the remote period Magadha was separated from the rest of India by Ganga-sagar. The ancient history of Nepal bears this out”.(P.7)

As the Vedas are believed to have been composed in c.1500 B.C., and as the Rigveda is considered to be the oldest Vedic scripture , one can fairly maintain that Jainism was prevalent in 1500 B.C. So much so that the Hindu text Bhagavata Purana included Rishabha as the amsavatara (minor incarnation of Vishnu).

ASCETICISM AND RISHABHA’S SRAMANA CULTURE

The yogic posture, kayotsarga-sitting or standing, adopted by Jain Tirthamkar shows the most fundamental feature of Jain path of liberation and its ancient origin of ascetic practice. As R.D.Ranade and S.K.Belvalkar state; “There is evidence to suppose that the philosophical speculations of the Upanishadic period were very largely influenced by a set of wandering ascetics and teachers following their own quaint and mystic practices. As already explained the Upanishadic impulse to give up all worldly ties and take to a life of homeless wanderings can be satisfactorily explained only by postulating an extraneous influence of this nature…”(P.400)

As M. N. Deshpande, a former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, states,. “This extract helps in satisfactorily understanding the distinctive nature and origin of Jain asceticism which was distinct from Brahmanic asceticism. This path of the sramanas inculcates complete nivratti (turning away completely from worldly life) and pravrajya (renunciation), enjoining total anagaratva (the state of homelessness) together with the vow of non-willing, truthfulness, non-stealing and celibacy. The concept of “Trigupti or the total abstinence by mind (manas), body (kaya)and speech (vacha), further tends to sharpen the ascetic ideal to a point that casting one’s body by prolonged fast (sallekhana) is recommended and no other religious order. Among other distinctive practices of the Jain faith mention may be made of alochana or confession of sin’s and the daily ceremony of pratikramana or expiation ofsins”(Pp.20-21, The Background and Tradition , Ch-2 in The Jain Art and Architecture , Bharatiya Jnanapitha, Vol..I, 1974)





M.N.Deshpande also states emphatically that “One thing is quite certain, that asceticism in India has a great antiquity and Jain ascetic practices as exemplified by Rishabhadeva were strikingly different from the Brahmanical tradition “(P.19, ibid)

Jain Acharya Tulsi in his Pre-Vedic Existence of Sramanic Culture find’s confirmation in the four Puranas of his opinion that the Asuras, were not only non-Vedic i.e.non-Aryan people, but they were the priests of the Jain religion. He also considers that the pose of Yogasana, in which several human figures are drawn on the seals of Indus Valley, was widely known in pre-Aryan India and was borrowed much later by the Hindu asceties.

The French scholar Louis Renou, in his 1953 lectures on the religions of India observed that “The Jain movement presents evidence that it is of great interest both for the historical and comparative study of religion in general. Based on profoundly Indian elements, it is at the same time a highly original creation. Containing very ancient material, more ancient than that of Buddhism and yet highly refined and elaborated.”


YOGA AND JAINISM

As noted by Dr.Natalya Guseva, Russian scholar in her book Jainism (1971)Translation by Y.S.Redkar, if one juxtaposes the yogic posture on Indus seals “with the fact that the most ancient philosophical work of the Jains , the “Book of Wisdom of Arahatas” ascribed to Rishabha himself was also called ‘Yogi” (Benjamin Rowland. The Art and Architecture of India, Plate 81a), and also that this posture is the classical echelon of the posture of Tirthamkar for 25 centuries (and possibly much longer). Then all this brings back to our minds the thought that there is possibly ancient connection between Jainism and the Indus civilization. It is possible that the teaching of Yoga and this posture connected with it penetrated in the faiths of later period and Buddha and many Hindu gods were portrayed in this posture.”(P.91-92)

Meditation and cultivation of equanimous renunciatory spirit is the soul of Jain ascetic path. The practice of yoga consists in meditation (dhyana) and deep meditation (samadhi) leading to the ideal posture of the Jain ascetic practices as kayotsarga meaning abandonment of body which in other words means a meditative realisation of liberation or the nirvikalpa samadhi as the highest stage of yogic practices. as a matter of fact samadhi is the last step in the eightfold path as explained by Patanjali in Yoga Sutras.

These are yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, dharana, dhyana and samadhi. It is pertinent to remember that the very first step of yama means and includes the observance of five-fold self-restraint or discipline: ahimsa (non-violence), satya (truthfulness), asteya (honesty), brahmacharya (continence) and aparigraha (freedom from greed and covetousness or non-possession). These






are the sine qua non of the yogic practice according to Patanjali which is also the basic framework of Jain religious practices of the lay as well as ascetic community. It is important to bear in mind that ahimsa or non-violence is the first and strictest of sramanic Jainism which can be said to anticipate Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras which appeared later, where non-violence is the first of the yamas or restraints. This is the same ascetic monastic practice known in Jainism as samayika


SWASTIKA SIGN AND TIME COMPUTATION

It is interesting to note that the Swastika signs seen in Mohen Jo Daro and Harappa culture are also common in the symbols of Jainism. Swastika is the symbolic sign of the seventh Tirthamkar , Suparsva and the middle part forms the sign of the 18th Tirthamkar Ara. This sign is always drawn in manuscripts, in miniatures and in the ornaments in Jain temples.

Swastika, basically means and denotes well-being. It forms one of the eight auspicious emblems found on the Ayagapatas. These eight auspicious signs are known as ashtamangalas, and Ayagapatas are among the earliest and most distinctive Jain sculpture.

The universe according to Jainism is uncreated by any divinity and is without a beginning and an end. The wheel of time incessantly revolves, pendulum like, in half-circles, one ascending and the other descending-Utsarpini and Avasarpini as noted above-and the unit of such cosmic time is known as a Kalpa.

A Kalpa, meaning an era, eon or age, is a unique concept in Jain metaphysics because time is considered to be a real substance along with four other substances, pudgala, dharma, adharma and akasa, and is known as kala which are called dravyas. The practical dimensions of time, like the second, minute,hour, day, month and year are mere deductions of the real substance that the Kala is .

Thus the concept of time, in an existential and realistic sense, and the system of counting is believed by many scholars arose before the Vedic culture. And the Jains are the pioneers also in starting the first modern Samvat (era) beginning with the Nirvana of Mahavira, known as Vir Nirvana Samvat which is the most ancient one. It is 605 years previous to Shaka, 479 years to Vikrama and 527 years to the Christian era.


RISHABHA AS EPOCH-MAKING JAIN SRAMANIC TIRTHAMKARA IN ITIHASA-PURANA

The idea of Rishabha, the first Jain Tirthamkar being an epoch-making man is deeprooted in the Jain religions tradition. It is well corroborated in Hindu puranas, Vedas and scriptures.

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“Just as the sun possesses rays the Arihant possesses the wealth of true knowledge.”

What is even more significant as established from these puranas is that this country has become well known as Bharata-Varsha after the eldest of the hundred sons of Rishabha, known as Bharata.

That this country is known as BharataVarsha after Bharata is as much a matter of pride for Jainism as for the history of India. In the Vedic scriptural tradition this fact has been accepted unanimously. In Vishnu Purana (2,1,31), Vayu Purana,(33,52), Linga Purana(1,47,23), Brahmanda Purana(14,5,62), Agni Purana( 107,11-12), Skanda Purana ,Khanda((37,57) and Markandaya Purana(50,41) it is clearly stated that this country is known as Bharata Varsha.

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“Lord Rishabhdeo, Jineshwar, the omniscient and all-pervasive, incarnated himself on the magnificent Kailas (Ashtapad) mountain”

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“Nabhiraja and Marudevi gave birth to a son named Rishbhdeo, the greatest of Kshatriyas and the first ancestor of all Kshatriyas”