Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s32.2

c4.s32.2

A Jaina tradition preserved by Puspadanta, the author of the Mahāpurāṇa (in Apabhraṃśa) while commenting on the statement of a much earlier work called Kalpasūtra says that before the king Nābhi there were kalpavrikṣas (wish-fulfilling trees), and so people could get what they liked. But during Nābhi's reign, these trees had disappeared. There was the first rainy season, but people did not know how to till and how to collect grains and so were starving. When this was the state of the people, Nābhi taught them to make earthen pots out of the temples of the elephant. He taught them to crush the grain with a pestle, to enkindle fire and to cook. He explained them the method of drawing a thread out of cotton and weaving cloth. Thus Nābhi and his son Ṛṣabhadeva were not only the first teachers of Jainism, but from the point of view we are discussing here, the bestowers of civilization.²⁸