RAJVICHAR: JAINISM-The truth

Dashratha,the king of Saketa(ahyodya) had four queens Aparajita,Sumitra,Suprabha and Kaikeyi.These four queens had four sons.Aparajita's son was Padma and he became known by the name Rama.Sumitra's son was Narayana he became to be known as Lakshmana.Kaikeyi's son was Bharata and Suprabha's son was Shaturghna.Rama had four queens Maithili,Prabhavati,Ratinibha and sridama.

Lakshman was a student of Mareesa,uncle of Ravana from whom he learnt mantras and tactics.While doing so Lakshman met Soorpanaka,Ravan's sister and fell in love for her beauty.Then he was married to her.After he returned to Ayodhya, he abandoned her and when they were on vanvasa she came to him and he refused to accept her.Then Ravan was angry and to teach a lesson of pain of love he took Sita and demanded justice for his sister.

Hanuman is relative of Ravana belonging to rakshasa clan.He is married to Ravana's niece.Ravana made him king of nearby island called Hanugraha and hence his name got changed.Looking at his deeds Ravana sends him to mainland where he initially try to conquer Kishkinda.Seeing at might of Hanuman,Vali offered him friendship.Vali wanted to go in spiritual path to become a jain monk,and installs Sugriv as his successor in Kishkinda.Sugriv offer Hanuman a position in his kingdom.Hanuman get married to few of relatives of Sugriv.This is when Rama and Lakshmana approaches Sugriv for help.Hanuman reaches to Lanka and urges Ravana to return Sita,but he could not convince.In the meantime Sugriv and Ram make alliance to fight Ravana.When Hanuman returns from Lanka,they were ready for the war at south coast.Then Hanuman had no choice other than fighting alongside Sugriv.Lakshman killed Ravana.

Sita takes renunciation as a jain ascetic after Ram abandons her and reborn in heaven.Ram also after Lakshmanas death renounces his kingdom and becomes a jain monk.Ultimately he attain kevala jnana omniscience and attain libration.Ram predicts that Ravana and Lakshmana who were in fourth hell will attain liberation in their future birth.Accordingly Ravana will be future tirthankara and Sita will be his ganadhara(chief disciple)

You must be amazed or shocked after reading story of Ramayan.But i am not a writer and definitely not fiction stories.This is Jain version of Ramayan.Other than jain there are many versions of Ramayana like Srilankan ,south asian,buddhist,sikh and nepali.I personally believe that epics like Ramayana were not written as facts of history or something that actually happened ,they were written to inspire people Rama and Ravana may or may not have existed but they definitely are symbolic of good and evil.

My personal belief about jainism was that like buddhism ,jainism also emerges from hindu religion but thats not true because basically jains are not aryans and after excavation in 1890 archiologist found seal of jainis which prooved that jainism is religion of ancient India during indus valley civilisation era. Second president of India Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was of the opinion that jainisn was in existence long before vedas were composed.

''There is evidence to show that so far back as the first century B.C. there were people who were worshipping Ṛṣabhadeva, the first tīrthaṅkara. There is no doubt that Jainism prevailed even before Vardhamāna or Pārśvanātha. The Yajurveda mentions the name of three Tīrthaṅkaras-Ṛṣabha, Ajitnātha and Ariṣṭanemi. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa endorses the view that Ṛṣabha was the founder of Jainism.''

— Dr. S. Radhakrishnan(Ex President of India)

History of Jainism

Its said that 22nd Tirthankara of jain Neminath was Krishna's cousin.Tirthankara means head or dharmguru or God. 23rd Parshvnath(877-772BC) and last 24th Tirthankara was MAHAVIR(599-572BC) First Tirthankara was Rishbhanatha and about him there is mention in rigveda who is founder of jainism.

Mahavir and Gautam Buddha were from same period. King of Magadha Bindisara( laid foundation for mauryan empire) who met Gautam Buddha prior to enlightenment and later become disciple of Buddha. Bindisara also frequently visited samavasaran(preaching hall) of Mahavir seeking answers for his questions. Bindusara asked Mahavira true version of Ramayana.

Chandragupta Maurya(324-297BC),the founder of mauryan empire in later age become disciple of Jainism. His son Ashoka(268-232BC) become Buddhist and Ashoka's grandson Samprati(224-215BC) converted to Jainism.This was the period when all three religions hindu,jain and buddhism tried to convert people .Till 8th century AD buddhist and jain were majority and hindus were minority. South India upto sangli and kolhapur in maharashtra was mostly jains.

Jain Temples

Jainism spread to south india and they build many temples. According to All India jain minority forum many temples of south India were actually jain temples but during 8th and 11th century its converted to hindu temples.One of the main temple of south India Tirupati Balaji and Other temples claims by Jain minority were built by jains.Other temples are

1. Madurai Meenakshi temple

2. Kanchipuram kamakshi temple and 100 temples in kanchipuram

3. Varadperumal temple(kanchipuram)

4. Thiruvanmalai Arunachalam temple

5. Mylapore kapaliswara temple

6. Nagaraja temple nagercoil

Mahalakshmi temple,kolhapur is hindu temple now but jains claim that it was built by nimbadeva and you can see 72 jinas carved on shikhar of the temple .Belgaon,Kolhapur and Sangli are 3 among top 5 districts of India in terms of jain population even today.Historically 30% population was jain during Rashtrkut empire when ellora caves were constructed by jains.

According to blog of jain community

Thamizh(tamil language) existed in India amongst the Dravidians several thousands of years before. Sanskrit was a language that was brought by Aryans those who entered India through the Kyber and bholan passes. Sanskrit is as such, much younger language than Thamizh. Thousands of words were borrowed from Thamizh into Sanskrit. Few examples are neer (water) and meen (fish). The linguistic research work done by the two greatest English linguists Caldwell and Burrow proves this fact that, Sanskrit has borrowed words heavily from Thamizh.

Dandin the author of the Kavyadarga in Sanskrit, was a scholar from Kanchipuram in the Tamil Nadu. Sankara the exponent of Advaita philosophy, was again a Tamilian. He mentioned in his works Saint Njanasampantar, the crusader against Jainism in South India. Raamanujar, the originator of Visishtaadvaita philosophy was a Tamilian and he lived every close to Kanchipuram.These scholar borrowed tamil words.

Around 8th century Indian kingdoms were divided among Buddhism,Jainism and Hindusm.Adi shankara in 8th century and Ramanuja in 11th century revived hinduism.They converted many kings who were jain in south to hinduism and jain temples into hindu temples.

Jain religion being non violence did nothing to prevent from conversion.Adi shankarachary and Ramanuja revived hinduism around 8-11th century.As per jain community blog and wikipedia ,around 7th century Sambandar vedic scholar and saint from tamilnadu converted pandyan king koon pandiyan from jainism to hinduism and then with consent of Sambandar king massacred around 8000 jains.

2011 census shows that jain population in India is 0.37% ie 44.51 lacs.94% are literate and wealthy.

This article is just information but....
Being Indian I must know India better
My opinions change with new information.
What about you ???