Rsabha : The Pre-Historic Way-Formulator of Planetary Scientific Spirituality

By Mr. Atmasanyasi Ram

Rsabha, son of Nabhi, is accepted as the prehistoric greatest spiritual personage by all the three religious currents of Bharata-Jaina, Bauddha and Brahmanic. The Jaina religion propounds him as the first way-formulator (tirthankara), the Baudha, as a pratyeka Buddha and the Brahmanic as the eighth Avatara, the first human Avatara, preceded by seven animal Avataras. The Jaina tradition maintains that only twins of boy-girl were born till the times of Nabhi. Rsabha and Sunanda, the twin, were born to him. With Rsabha, the system of twin-births to couples became discontinued. The twin, on attaining puberty, married as husband and wife. In the age of Rsabha, the food-gathering system of substenance also got discontinued. Rsabha is claimed by the Jaina tradition as the first scientist to discover agriculture and industry. He also gave the art of writing to his age. The mythological chronology of billions of years assigned to Rsabha is unacceptable to the historians. But this Jain tradition is corroborated by the evidences of cultural anthropology, cultural geology, cultural geography and cultural archaeology. These sciences organically maintain, as given before, that the science of farming was discovered at the beginning of the Neolithic age C. 9000 B.C. We may, hence, rightly accept this date as the age of Rsabha.

Rsabha is the first way-formulator of Jainism and the first human descent (Avatara) of Brahmanism. Both the Sects equally worshipped and venerated him during the two milleniums A.D. When we go to the B.C. era, we find kharvela of Anga recovering the image of Rsabha from the Magadhans in the second century B.C. which was carried away three hundred years ago by the Magadhan Nandas after their military conquest of Anga (modern Utkal). This historical evidence clearly proves the popularity of Rsabha from 500 B.C. to 1987 A.D. The historised my-fictionologies (mythology. fictionalised) of the Markandeya, the Kurma, the Agni; the Vayu, the Brahmanda, the Varaha, the Linga, the Visnu, the Skanda and the Bhagvata Puranas repeat, more or less, the Rsabha accounts of the Jain puranas.! The oriental and the indo logical historians accept the corroborated evidences from the mutually exclusive and hostile cult-literatures as a piece of historical evidence. The Jaina and the Brahmana literary evidences, corroborated by the archaeological and the inscriptional evidences, prove, beyond any doubt, the historicity of Rsabha, the greatest spiritual personage of the hoary past.

The Jaina and the Bauddha religions are termed as the Sramana religions in the Brahmana literature. Patanjali, in his commentorial Mahabhasya on Panini's Astadhyayi, who flourished in the middle of the second century B. C.; maintains that the Brahmanas and the Sramanas are mutually hostile anatonists with permanent opposition (Shashvata virodha). The Rgveda and the Upanisads also know the Sramana religion. The Brahmanas took them as their adversaries and deeply hated them.2 They were always at war with them throughout the long periods of the Bharatiya history. This antagonism continues even upto the present times. The Sramanas and the Asramana people are also known to the Upanisads. The Rgveda mentions the concept Asramana. We may reasonably presume that the concept Sramans, the hostile opposite of the concept Asramana, was also known to it but dropped out on it's final redaction. Some re-constitutor of the Rgvedic texts may rediscover it. The Buddhist scriptures call Mahavira a Nirgrantha, But the available evidences concerning Rsabha to Mahavira call them only the way - formulators and none else. Rsabha, amongst them all, stands, through the ages, as the most popular, the most powerful, the most attractive and the most influential in all the regions and with all the peoples; societies and thoughts of the planet-world. He was the first re­establisher of the primeval spontaneous society founded on scientific spirituality in the world of ours.

But Rsabha's was a very powerful spiritual personality which found its way into the Brahmana cult and literature. The Sramanic coverts to Brahmanism took him in their society of adoption. The Brahmana leaders soon realised too that without the psuedo-acceptance of the spirituality of the land of their military conquest, they would be unable to win social stronghold and hence, they perforce, began to own the Bharateya spiritual laws and leaders, Rsabha, thus, found his way into the Brahmana fold and established his spiritual supremacy there too. The Puranas hold him in high respect. The Rgveda had started this process which ripened in the Puranic age after fifteen hundred years C. 500 A.D. The B.gveda was redcated C. 1000 B.C.

Rsabha, also called Vrsabha in the Rgveda, is the holder of the Atman and the Anatman. His and his ascetics spiritual blessings are invoked. The ascetic followers of Rsabha are known to the Rgveda as the Sisnadevas; the naked ascetics. Though the spiritual blessings of the Sisnadevas are invoked but the ritualist priest could not adjust thinker-priest with the temper of their thinkers and still hated them. This thinker-priest dichotomy has always persisted in history. They requested Indra, their mightiest supreme military commander, not to allow their approaches to the Brahmanic order as they were their hostiles and would spoil their materialistic way of life.3

Rgveda. eulogises Vrsabha in several hymns. 4 The Rgvedic hymn 10. 110.10 corroborates the pre-historic natural social reality of the twin-births and their marriage on attaining puberty. Here the Jaina and the Brahmana traditions meet. Yama and Yami of this hymn were twin brother-sister but Yama, here, discontinues this social custom and refuses to marry Yami. But, in spite of the Brahmana Rgvedic eulogies to Rsabha, his Sramanic followers are despised in the Rgveda as adversaries for their being anti-collectivistic (Abrahma), anti-collectivistic (Ayajna), anti-deistic (Adevaya) and opposes of all the institutions and beliefs for which the materialistc Brahmanism stood. They are despised as brahmavishas, the hated adversaries of the Brahma, as they did not follow the Brahmaryan way of life, were opposed to collactivities, paid no respect to their deities and did not subscribe to their beliefs.5

In one aforesaid hymn Vrsabha is presented as horns-crowned. Horns, in the pre-Aryan a ages, were emblems of the spiritalor mundane soverignty. The four­headed Mahayogi and other sumilar seals excavated from Mohenjodaro eminently display horns crowining their heads, connoting spirital sovereignty, as given below. Shushna, the supreme leader of Shushna jana republic of Bharata, resisted the foreign Brahmanyan military invasion in several battles C.1260 C. to 1240 B.C. He wore horned crown as the emblem of his political authority.6 Horns as emblem of spirital and mundane authority were used in Greece, West Asia and America in th~ pre-Aryan ages. The horns of consecration were originally the horns of the sacred bull. 7 The concept Rsabha or Vrsbha connotes bull. The Reshef bronze statue of Rishaf (Rsabha), found in Greece, is dated C.1200 B.C. Reshef is, here, crowned with two horns. This pre-Aryan Greek evidence is of greates planetary importance. The symbol of Rsabha, in Jaina tradition, is also bull. This Reshef has been identified with Rsabha of the Jaina tradition. This statue has two significant horns on the head of Reshef (Rsabha) has been accepted as the common inherited great personage of the Phoenicians (Panis of Bharata), Amorites and Armeans. He is a great spirital personage of history belonging to the hoary past beyond any historical date but he was a very popular greatest spirital personage of Egypt, West Asia and the Mediterranean C. 3000 B.C.8 This date of 3000 B.C., now, standa corrected at as 4000 B.C., at the least, when the Bharateya expeditions to Sumer and Egypt went there. Meneas and Osiris and Oarnes and Utnapishtin respectively took the Rsabhaic spirital way to Egypt and Sumer in West Asia and all the three took it to the Mediterranean C. 3000 B.C.

In spite of the non-decipherment of the Proto-Prakrit script excavated from Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Chanbudaro, Kalibanga and other archaeological sites of the Saraswati valley region, Rsabha and his spirital way get reliable corroboration from the matteric objects excavated from these sites. These matteric relics are numerous and self-speaking. The numbers of the seals, stellites and pottery figurines have, here, been given from E.I.H. Mackay'S' Further Excavations at Mohenjodaro, unless otherwise indicated.8

The seal on plate no. XCIV at no. 420 with its photographic enlargement on plate no. at, has unanimously been acclaimed by the archaeologists as the best, the most important and the most outstanding sovereign Hnd. The seal represents a sober, serene and sublime Mahayogi in Padmasana Yoga posture, with eyes closed, vertically outstretched hands, with thumbs on the folded knees, a beautifully prepared head­dress with two horns on either side of it, a stately face and erect figure, exhibiting the penis erectum (urdhva Ungam, Urdva Retas), full of internal power rushing out and in total perfect meditation. The artistic impostion of bangles and ornaments may be returned to the artist himself. The Mahayogi has four faces three faces in sight and the fourth above the neck being hidden, like the neck itself. The later statues of spiritual personages in historical tennis also do exhibit four heads, a legacy of the Saraswati valley art. This heritage is continous. On the right side of impression on the seal is depicted a tiger peacefully looking at the Mahayogi. Above the tiger stands an elephant in a peaceful posture looking to the reverse direction. In between these two wild and ferocious animals stands a man erect, probably nude, with straight downward hands, probably in the physical abondon (Kayotsarga) posture. Below the Asandi (wooden seat) on which the Mahayogi is seated is a deer, full of life and in a happy posture. A rhenoceros looking towards the Mahayogi stands on his left, the buffalo appearing above the rhenoceros. The presence of these animals around him in a state of mutual harmony and family relationship is marvellous. The deer does not fear the tiger and the rhenoseros. The elephant stands happy in the very presence of the tiger. In between thse two ferocious animals, a man standing in meditational posture, has the courage to stand peacefully and in dynamic harmony with hymn. John Marshall, the original excavator of Mohenjodaro, identifies the Mahaycigi as the proto-type of Siva. He was quite ignorant of Siva and Rsabha both. Siva did not exist in the pre-Aryan and the Aryan Vedic ages. Only Rudra is known to the Vedas. Siva is a later historkal growth. He certainly was totally ignorant of Jaina philosophy and religion whose followers were too inertial and static to inform him of the right meaning of the seal. Siva's statue no-where has been shown wearing a head dress with two horns. The presence of the horns even according to the Rgveda. The Rgveda further depicts the Aryan adversaries, the Rakshasas and the Ahis as wearing horns.9 The second distinguishing feature of Siva and Rsabha is nakedness. Siva is nowhere depicted as naked. The Rgveda speaks of the naked ascetics as Sisnadevas who were supreme spiritual personages. The later Greek historians, Megasthenes and others, encountered such Sramanic ascetics in the fourth century B.C. and later. The naked asceticism was and is, still today, the special feature of the Jaina ascetic order. The presence of the horns and the penis erection leaves no doubt that only pre­Brahmaryan Sisnadeva has been depicted on the seal and no one else.1O The Eka­Vratya of the fifteenth kanda of the Atharvaveda, the way-formulator of the Vratyamarga, the way of spirital Mahavratas, has in this research work Vratyamarga, been identified with the twenty third way formulator (Tirthankara) Parsva of the Jaina hisotry. He has been conceptualised as a Mahayogi in the same posture as Rsabha in the Atharvaveda. The Rsabha conspicously displays the existence of the way of Non-violence in the pre­Brahmaryan ages of Bharata; so here is depicted the Eka-Vratya. Shiva always walks with violence. The pre-historic way-formulator Rsabha, and Rsabha alone and no one else, has been depicted on this seal.

The seal no. 222 on plate LXXXVII depicts a figure seated in Padmasana Yogic posture in the manner of seal no. 420. The Asandi (wooden piece for seat) is carved out here clearer than in the previous one. The hands are stretched out in Yoga­mudra (meditational posture), almost touching the folded knees. The figure has two horns on the head without the intervening head-dress. It has four heads. The Mahayogi is nude and is sitting in the meditational posture. The presence of animals is ommitted. The figure appears to be of a living Arhat (liberated-in-life, jivanmukta), and not of a way-formulator. Seal no. 235 on the same plate depicts a great spirital ascetic. Seal nos. 75 and 86 on plate 110. LXXXIV, no. 454 on XCL and seal no.122 on LXXXV depict a spirital sadhaka (realiser). Seal No.75 depict the nude Sadhaka standing between two ferocious tigers in perfect dynamic spirital harmony, with no violence from either side. Seal no.86 depicts the same scene but the sadhaka is not nude. Seal no.454 has his penis lying low in a passionless state of self-control. They are non-violent sadhakas aspiring for Arhatship. The two Harappan statuettes have revolutionised the existing noti.ons about the ancient Indian art. 11 Both the statuettes of less then 4" in height are male torsos-exhibiting ensitiveness, and a modelling that was both firm and resilient. In both, there are socket holes in the neck and shoulders for the attachment of heads and arms made in separate pieces. In one of the statuettes, the body is represented as a volume modelled by an unrestrained (spirital) life-force pressing out from within activating every particle of the surface of the body, the figure being actually at rest yet brimming with motion. It is in the throes of a subtle and rumbling motion emanating from the core of the body. They depict inner consciousness of life. They depict either an Arhat or a Tirthanakara, in the nude form, standing in Kayotsarga (Body-Abondon) meditational posture.

Here, in his comparative studies of Indian, Egyptian and Sumerian cultures, has produced portraits of several seals. Two portraits on figure 108 are depic'l:ed nude with penis peacefully hanging below. They have horns attached to the head-dress and project upwards. They are standing in the posture of one hand raise and the other outstretched. There is no violence exhibited. They appear to be the figures of Arhat votaries.12 Indian Archaeology 1960-61 depicts three terracata figurines on Plate L at figure B. One of them is reproduced on the cover page in an enlarged print. The fiqure depicts an Arhat votary. Almost such a figure is depicted on Mohanjodaro Plate VI at no.3, Seal no.279 on Mohanjodaro Plate no, LXXXVIII depicts a man thrusting a spear on a buffalo in the lower part and non-violent man in the above part whose presence causes no spear injury on the buffalow. The figure depicts the superiority of non-violence over violence. The triumph of non-violence over violence is depicted on Amulet no. 23 on Plate XC at 23(a) and 231(b). Male figurines nos.4 to 10 on plate LXXII are also of spirital votaries. They may well be compared with magadhas of the Eka-Vratya of the Atharvaveda. Seal no.430 on plate XCIV, with enlargement on Plate XCIV at A, depicts a standing female ascetic in the Kayotsarga meditational posture. Before her, on the right side, is depicted a kneeling follower. The extra­ordinary seal no.347 on Plate LXXXIV depicts a man or a woman with a tiger's body, having two spiral horns extended laterally. The human portion of the figure is nude. Such human-animal figures are profusely found in Sumer and Egypt. Such figures depict the familial reTationship between the animal and the man and, also, the triumph of spiritality over animalism. The pottery female figurines of Plates LXXIII at no.4, LXXV at nos. 1, 6, 21 and LXXVI at nos.9 and 21 are of spirital female votaries miscalled mother-goddesses by Mackay. They may be compared with Pumscalis spirital female followers of the Eka-vratya Parsva of the Athervaveda.13 These archarological matteric relics of the Saraswati Valley region prove beyond doubt that Bharata was the epi-centre of the planetary scientific spiritality. This Saraswati Valley culture was not limited only to the Western Bharata alone. The archaelogists have unearthed this culture and civilization upto the Karnataka state in the south and the Bengal State in the east. The whole of the then Bharata, extending upto eastern Iran in the far west 'enjoyed the fruits of this epi-central Bharatiya culture and civilzation.

This Bharatiya spirital culture and civilization, as given earlier, went to Sumer and Egypt by the first quarter of the fourth millenium B.C. Of course, it naturally could not have been as rich as in Bharata. Still we find numberous significant excavated material relics that prove beyond doubt that the Sumerian and the Egyptian spiritual culture and civilaization was similar to the parental one in all essentials. The Sumerian evidences are richer than the Egyptian ones and complimentarily compensates its inferiority in the inscriptional documentary evidences. A Figure I on Plate one, 14 depicts a naked and horned man, in a serene mood, his hands being on the backs of the two horned animals, with horned human heads with springhtly looking eyes. The figure 3 depicts a violent animal standing in dynamic harmony with the two sitting peaceful animals, one a cow and the other a man with the head of a horse. A figure on Plate XI depicts a winged bull with a human head. A figure of Plate XXVIII depicts a spirital female with wild beasts.15 Three clay female figurines on Plate II are depicted in different spirimeditational postures. The seal no.3 on plate 15 depicts a naked Yogi in the meditational posture of outstretched straight hands, in the company of animals and plants in the Mohanjodaro style, even according to the excavator Woolley. 16 These evidences belong to the earliest Sumerian period. The archaic seals of figure 18 and 19 from Ur. depict naked spirital teachers with two naked followers, the standing in seal no.18 and kneeling in seal no.19. The leader of the musicians has a trident on his head, in the nature of horn.17

The three copper images discovered at Khafage in Sumer depict a startling historical reality. The supreme' human leader of Sumer An, with his two associates, is depicted naked, Only the leader has the trident, the symbol of sovereignty, over his head. The counterpart of An is Anu in Egypt, next in supremacy to Osiris till the first six dynasties and equally as well as surpassing him after that, Egypt had a tribe by the name of Anll. An of Sumer could also be the leader of a tribe of the same name. It may be recollected that the expeditions to Sumer and Egypt might have Inc1uded a pre-Aryan leader of the Anu Republic of Bharata, a constituent of the Five­Republics (Pancajanah), who fought against the foreign savage Brahmaryan invaders. He also took with him th~ republican political system to Sumer and Egypt which we find established there, at least till 2500 B.C., in full glory. This naked and trldented An also appears on figure 30. This naked An, this time with a broken horn, reappears with a naked male associate on the right and a girdled female associate on the left, the rest of the body being naked. An archaiac seal from Ur represents a naked harp­player. An Indo-Sumerian seal from Sumer displays the figure of a tridented An surrounded by serpants, fishes, palm-trees and buffaloes in dynamic harmony, the ferocious and the non-violent animals living together in peace in company of trees, the organic family of all sorts of life including man, animal and vegetation lives. A seal from Ur depicts two naked Yogis in meditational postures. Nudity is common with the Sumerian followers of spiritality as depicted in three figures, is The Ui seals excavated fro)m the Royal Cemetry go to the most ancient Sumerian age, even upto 3500 B.C. according to the excavator Woolley, clearly have Bharatiya influences, as the matterlc relics found there have only one original home and. that is Bharata. These contacts go back to 4000 B.C., according to the modern researches.

The Egyptian portrait statues of pre-2500 B.C. period are very rare. The figure no.1 on Plate IX, the portrait of a naked man; his penis hidden under the inter­twined crossed legs, without any cloth on the waist, in a very serene mood, with effulging eyes in the straight head on the straight back, in the Siddhasana meditational, posture; has copy in both his hands, the open sheet of the copy not being spotless white. Hall describes it the figure of a scribe but it seems incorrect. He is not wrlting.i9 He is in the posture of delivering a spirital sermon, as is done In Bharata even today. The portrait belongs to the Old Pharaohship. The portrait represents either Osiris or some other senior spirital ascetic. The Badarian figurine (a) and the Aratian figurine (b) on Plate IV20 depict naked figurines, the former having only a waist cloth. Both are in spirital meditational posture. The portraits 23 and 24 on Plate XIII are of a knife handle excavated from Gevel el Ara, the obverse side which portrays nine men, some of whom are naked while the rest only with a small waist cloth. Its revese side portrays a person standing amongst the elephant and other peace-loving animals.21 This portrait reminds us of the Mohanjodaro seal portraying violent and non-violent animals in family relationship. These are neither hunting nor battle scenes.

The figures 151 and 152 present comparative four figures of the Sumerian seals of Ur and the Egyptian cylinder seals of the first pharaoshship the upper three Egyptian female figures are all naked while the Sumerian upper first and third are waist-clothed and the second a naked female figurined. The lower fourth figure on both sides as of a naked man. This nudity, when the cloth was available, represents the remarkable historical reality of the spirital culture and civilization. This nudity does' not arous'e base passions but bestows upon the realiser supreme serenity, self­control and dynamic peace. The figure 63 portrays a nude mighty person. Nudity appears to be the custom of the Egyptian dynamic people, spirital or matteric. The figures 204 and 206 represent a nude man in perfect friendship with the two lions. The scene of figure 204 is that of friendship and not of battle. There is no offence either from the lions or from the man. In figure 206, the lions are looking with peaceful eyes at their man friend. These are the scenes of non-violence rather than of violence. The figure 249 represents Horus, son of Osiris, in the naked form, with hawk-headed Osiris standing on his right side on a long coiled snake; while Horus stands on a crocodile.22 This figure is a great historical record. Snake represents the Ahi (Serpant) sub-race of Bharata. It originated from the great Ikshavaku race in the hoary past. The Ahi republics, offered stiff resistances to the Brahmaryan invaders of Bharata. Osiris belonged to this Ahi sub-race of Bharata. These Egyptian matteric relics display deep family relationship with the Bharateyan matteric relics, portraying epi-central spirital culture and civilization.

We have earlier referred to the Grecian bronze statue of Reshef. The pre­Azetic American hero, belonging to the Ahi (Serpant) race, Quatzalcoatl is represented in art sitting in a meditative mood in Padmasana posture, with eyes closed and having two hooded horns.23 China offers no excavated matteric relics belonging to the pre­2500 B. C. ages but the Taoist literature of China redacted in the first half of the first millenium B. C. offers reliable evidences of the presence of the spirital way (Atmamarga) of Rsabha in China at the opening of the planetary history C. 4000 B.C.

Taoic spiritality is the most ancient Chinese reasophy; the conceptualised reasoning of the ultimate reality (sattvatva) as spiritality seen by the Atman of the liberated - in like (Jivanmukta). The Chinese tradition maintaing that it fell into disuse probably by C 2000 B.C., and was revised by Lao-tse, born in 604 B.C. who gave it the first availble form, now available, in his book Tao-Teh-Ching. His greatest follower Chaevange-tze of his own name. The concept Tao connotes Way. Taoity is no religion. It is only the way; like the Bharateya - way, the Sumereya way, the Qemtaya - way or Ta - mera - way or Ausareya - way,26 Creteya (Grecian-) way and the Amrikeya-way. In the pre-historic ages, this was the scientific spiritality organism; the Bharateya-way being the spirit (Atman) and the rest five the intellect (Medha) of the Spirit-way (Atma-marga) organism.

Tao, the way, is a phenomenon, not a positive being but the mode of being. The primal Tao is infinite, which is only the Way, no object. The finite Tao in sam, a living being.27 Tao has no name, hence, it is called that itself. Tao is emptiness, gravity, absolute vacancy, nothingness, whole, unidentified, still, formless, alone and invisible, Tao is motion. The movement of the proseeds by contraries (dialectial motion). All things sprang from It (Tao) as Existing (named); that Existence (Sat) sprang from it (Tao) as Anti-existence (prati-sat) (and not named). Tao, without name, signifies, unmanifest reality (Avyakta Sat), Tao, with name, connotes manifest reality (Vyakta Sat). Tao is the qualitative organic unity of the Avyakta and the Vyakta (Sattvatva) and of the existence and the anti-existence, the organic unity of the two mutually exclusive and hostile opposites.

Tao is ever-transformative. Tao produced One; One produced Two, Two produced Three, and Three produced all things. Tao, thus, is the organic unity of the unmanifest' zero and the manifest one, along with additions of ones to the original one to make one nine to infinity.

Yin (Atman, Spirit) is stillness. Yang (Anatman, Anti-spirit, viz. matter) is diffusiveness. Yang is expansion. Yin is its opposite element. The unity of Yin and Yang is organically harmonous and is more than a parent and secures comfort of all living beings. Their disharmony beings trouble and misery to the people. They are great robbers between heaven and earth from whom nothing can escape. You must be still, you must be pure, your eyes see nothing, your ears hear nothing, and your mind knows nothing, your spirit (Atman) will keep your body, and the body will live long. There heaven and earth have their controllers (Atmayogic controls), there the Yin and the Yang have their responsitories; Great men abide by solid (permanence, Yin) and eschew flimsy (in permanence, Yang). The clearest Taoist exposition of the Atmayoga.

Tao is not a disordered, indisicplined and autocratic being. He is Law. The Way means Law. The Law of the Tao is its being, what it is. Heaven takes the Law from Tao and Earth from the heaven. man takes his Law from the Earth. Tao is ever­in-motion. When the human society does not live according to these Laws, the Great Tao ceases to be observed. Harmony gives place to disharmony. The human society of you lived in perfect spontaneous harmony; in a state of perfect unity and integration. Tao, the complete, the all-embracing and the whole (One Totality), was the practised reality, the organic unity of the form and the formless, but without name. Simplicity and humility were natural to the human beings in the Taoic Age (of spontaneously). When the great Tao ceases to be observed and harmony gave way to disharmony; benevolence and righteousness came in vogue. Then appeared wisdom (knowldge) and shrewdness (reasoning), and there ensured great Hypocracy. Knowledge, reasoning and virtue, hence, are the evil products of the anti-Taoic disharmonious and artificial (anti-spontaneous) order of the human society where virtues are the mothers of Great Evils of Civilization Ages.

The Taoist Atmayogins and Jivanmuktas pratised the Atmayoga, in showing their skills in following the Tao, not to enlighten the people, but rather to make them simple and ignorant of the disharmonious order, so that they may themselves tread the path of the Tao, a great experiment in self training, without the burdon of teachership (Gurudom). They took food only to satisfy their belly and nothing else. If the practisers of the Tao had not yet won Taoship in this life span, they took rebirth. The theory of the transmigration of the spirit (Atman) has been hinted. The final end of the finite Tao of China, as in the then and modern Bharata, was to win liberation­in-life from the attached subtle matteric body to his spirit through the realisings of the Atmayoga (spiritality) and the Atmadhyana (Spirit-Meditation). The spirital process was similar to the Bharateya one; Atman-Effortivities (karman)-Atmayoga­Atmasiddhi (Final Spirital Attainment).

The poblem, now, is: Whether the Taovity is an original product of the Chinese region or a peaceful immigration from some other region. There were no nations, no nationalities, no countries and no other separating boundaries and borders dividing the planet Earth. It was a living and harmonious organism. Of course, the different regions had different grades of spirital development which were soon inter-communicated to the planetary family. The fundamental Taoist scripture Tao Teh King or Ching, describes the primeval reality, "The men of old, while the chaotic condition was yet underdeveloped, shared the placid tranquility which belonged to the whole world. These primeval men were the highest cultured and best civilized peoples. At that time, the Yin (Atman, Spirit) and Yang (Anatman, Matter), were harmonious and still; their resting and movement proceeded without any disturbance; the four seasons had their definite times; not a single thing received injury (Himsa, Violence) and no living being came to a premature end. Men might be possessed of (the faculty of) knowledge; but they had no occasion for its use. This was what is called the State of Perfect Unity. At this time, there was no action on the pert of anyone, but a constant manifestation of spontaneity. This condition of excellence deteriorated and decayed, till Sui-Zan and Fu-hsi arose and commence their adminlfitratlon of the World. Sui-Zan appears before Fu-hsl, Sui-Zan, "the man of the Burning Speculum," "the fire-producer, " was the primal adminstn~tQr, 29 Fu-hsi-often spoken as Fo-hl, is the founder of the Chinese administration and Is placed beyond 3000 B.C. 30 Sul­Zan Is prior to him and an earlier administrator, not of China alone, but of the whole world. The later testimony, that Fu-hsi was the founder of the Chinese adminstration does not stand correct to critical scrutiny. He was somebody else, including Sui-Zan, who is, thus, translated in the chinese scripture. This inner-contradiction in Tao Teh Ching proves the reliability of the earlier version that Sui-Zan, the predecessor of Fu­hsi, commenced the administration of the world, viz. planet Earth, and not of China alone.

No such Chinese is known to the pre-historic world. No Chinese expedition to Sumer, Egypt, Greece, Central America and Bharata is reported in those ages. It is only the' Bharata that sent expeditions to these regions. These expeditions included great spiritual leader, living the lives of spontaneous perfect unity, as given earlier. Their most supreme and sovereign leader was Rsabha, the first way-formulator of world. The state of spontaneous perfect unity continued in Bharata, as in China and other regions of the planet, till the energence of Rsabha. All the spirital currents of Bharat; the Jaina, the Buddhist and the Brahmana; own him. He is the common ancestral heritage of the whole of Bharata. The Jaina tradition records that the world's state of spontaneous and harmonious perfect unity continued undisturbed upto the age of Rsabha. Nobody dies prematurely. The twins continued to be born to the original male-female pair and his infinite successors, who married on the age of puberty. This tradition is corroborated by Rgveda Mandala X which speaks of the birth of the twin of Yama-yami but Yama refused the request of Yami to marry her, where-after the custom fell into disuse. The Jaina tradition records that, in the age of Rsabha, female twin lost her mate in her life time prematurely before attaining the age of puberty, marrying her and begetting the successor twin. One more disturbance also, happened. The needs-supplying (Kalapvrksas) ceased to supply fruits in abundance for physical sustenace. The state of perfect unity became disrupted. Rsabha, hence, created the first potters and the artisans. He was the first matascientist (matteric scientist) who discovered agriculture and industry, he invented the art of writing. He gave the first form of government. He created the whole social structure. He is the original establisher of the spirital culture and civilization. 31

The Jaina tradition further reports that Rsabha went to the Astapada, signifying a cluster of eight mountains.32 Such a cluster of eight mountains, with Mt. Meru or Sumeru in the centre, is known to the Jama, the Buddhist and the Brahmana scriptures, pertaining to ancient cultural geography; to the east of which was situated Purva-Videha, to the west the Aparagodana, to the north the Uttarkuru and to the south the Jambudvipa continents. The people coming from the Purva-videha and the Uttarkuru to the Jambudvipa continent are respectively known as the Videhas and the Kurus here.33 The modern orientology corroborates both these events of the pre­Aryan ancient mutual migrations from one continent to the other. The continent Uttarakuru was the original cradle land of the Aryans. It has been located to the south of the circumpolar region and to the north of the Caspian and the Ural Seas, convering the northern parts of the mountaneous Eurasian steppes and the southern part of the thick Siberian forests, extending upto the eastern sea-coast, including that of China. Mt. Pamir is the most eminent mountain lying in the centre of these four continents.34 The concept Sumeru could aswell be the concept Pameru, signifying the same connotation, which through ages, got corrupted as Pamir. We may, hence, on this circumstantial evidence, hold that the Mt. Pamir of the modern times is the Mt. pameru or Sumeru of the ancient hoary ages. The Astapad and the Sumeru, both, are the clusters of the eight mountains, hence, both appear to be one and the same mountain. Mt. Astapada, hence, is, herby, identified with Mt. Pamir. It is this modern Pamir range of mountains that the greatest spirital personage of the pre-historic, the pre-4000 B.C. ages; Rsal5ha, the Great, visited. To the east of the Pamir mountains lies Purva-videha, identified with China. It appears quite certain that the Rsabha may have travelled to China from Bharata, in the most ancient pre-historic times, may be even' before he travelled to Sumer and Egypt and the Mediterranean, like the historical Buddhism. The native philosophy of the practical Chinese people was.. only Confusianism which gave them the philosophy of social organisation, of common sense and practical knowledge.35 It had nothing to do with the Atman, the Yoga and the Mukti, in the hoary past or the ancient and the modern ages. it was always and is ever interested only in mundane materialistic matters. Taoity and Buddhism represent the opposite thought-currents to Chin ism, viz., Confusianism. And these three varying thoughts constituted the confused Chinese philosophy. The greatest Chinese Taoist was Sul-Zan, the pre-cursor of Fu-hsi, in whose age, like that of Rsabha in Bharata, the Taoist harmonious and spontaneous age got disrupted. Rsabha of Bharata, Reshef of Sumer, Egypt and the Mediterranean and Sui-zan of China, the whole of the then culture-world, appear to be one and the same person who gave the rlght-spirital way to the whole world; including the then savage Aryan, Semitic and Hamitic aggregations of the north and the west which, now, gratefully acknowledge the debt of the Eastern Spiritality of Bharata. The Law and Rule of Spirltality in the pre-historic culture-world was essentially of one and the same contents, stronger in certain regions and weaker in others, which was at the foundation of the dynamic, harmonious and spontaneous perfect unity of the whole of the homic cooperativity.

This spiritality was not the gift of any mystic or a super-human. spernatural or speculative man but the natural discovery of the cooperative self-effortivlties of the most ancient homic society, articulated by its greatest intelligent and splrital personage. It was the discovery by the rational wisdom of the social scientists, headed by the superlormost scientist amongst them. Ang Science, even in the modern sense, means rational wisdom and knowledge, creamed from the real facts of life and nature. This spirituality of the hoary past, first profounded by the Way-formulator Rlshabha, is Scientific Spiritality. Rishabha is the known and well-established great historic personage who first established the homic spontanious society in the planet-world founded on Scientific Spritiality comprising of Realibrium (Samatva), Realty (Satya) and Freedom (Svayattata). When the rule of violence entrenched itself on the planet Earth by C. 1000 B.C., Parsva of the ninth century B.C. bifurcated Satya into Satya and Ahimsa (Non-violence) to check and finally annihilate the present rule of violent savagery.

The organic cumulative comparative and critical study of the truths discovered by the modern sciences of cultural anthropology, cultural geology, cultural archaeology and cultural geography; with chronological, dialectical and historical perspectives unambigously corroborate the historical perspectives unambigously corroborated the historic discovery of the Scientific Spiritality, however wrong their interpretations might be of their own conclusions of these scientific experiments. That these experiments were strictly carried on under the guidance of the right intellect of the scientiest in concluding the nature of the everyday facts of life and nature made them scientific experiments and the experiments got the right conclusions. The discovery of the Atman, with all his accompaniments, was the conclusion of the scientific experiments carried through the homic reason. Of course, the materialistic interpretations of these spirital discoveries shall, naturally, be diametrically opposite to the spiritalist interpretations. The materialist scientists alone can rightly interpret the conclusions of the materialistic scientific experiments, hence, similarly, only the spirital scientists alone can rightly interpret the conclusions of the spirital scientific experiments. Only a great homo-scientist alone, rightly well-versed and extremely competent in Mata­science (matteric science) and Spiri-science (sprirital science) and both qualitatively unified in Homoscience, like Rsabha, who took the Saraswati Valley culture-civllization­way to China, West Asia, Egypt and the Metierranean by C.9000 B.C. can offer the right homic (spirital+matteric) interpretation, not a bisected one, either the matteric or the spirital. Until the spirital homic society throws up one such great homoscientist, we have to remain content with this right approach, that the spiri-scientists do accept the rational conclusions of the matasclentists in their own sciences, and vice versa.

We have, in our this and other theses, accepted the conclusions of the mata­scientitists concerning their matascientific discoveries. They should, to do justice to science and, hence, to the homity, also do likewise. Our interpretations should be rational, neither prejudiced nor sectarian. We should be rational, neither prejudiced nor sectarian. We should be Homos and Homo$ (Humans) only, neither the western­eastern or northern-southern homos nor the Judalc-Chrlstian-Muslim or Jalna­Buddhist-Brahmanic Homos. Only an eplthetless Homo can do justice to the Homoscience and the Homity (Humanity) of our dear and beloved planet-Earth.

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Author : By Mr. Atmasanyasi Ram, 26, C-Block, Sriganga Nagar, Rajasthan-335001
Article Source : Book "Rishabh Saurabh" Published on the occasion of Seminar on "Jaina Heritage of Karnataka, held at Bangalore
Organised By Rishabh Dev Foundation, Delhi on 4th & 5th April 1994"

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