[metmom]

This was founded about 900 BC by Mahavira (though he is supposed to be only the 21st in the line of Tirthankaras that stretch back to infinity. They believe that there is no creator god, that the universe has always existed and will always exist -- they argue with those who believe in a creation that it is not possible for something to be created out of nothing.

Sounds like your average modern day evolutionist. Dawkins and his ilk come immediately to mind.

And they say that *science* is not a religion.

right.....

[Cronos]

Dawkins does not have the depth of Jainism.

Jainism's beliefs are at least 2900 years old and are born out of the Gangetic Indo-European beliefs in reincarnation, the concept of maya and rejection of Aryanic deities like Indra/Thor and Varuna/Dyaus Pita/Zeus/Jupiter.

By 900 BC, the Aryans had been in northern India, in the Gangetic plains for 800+ years and had been moving towards demoting their ARyanic gods like Indra (who in the Rig Veda (c. 1700 BC) is mentioned quite often as the War/Storm God and get high praise and yagnas (sacrifices etc.) of worship, yet in modern-day Hinduism is practically ignored along with the rest of the pantheon bar the Hindu trinity (Shiva-Vishnu-Brahma).

Shiva seems to be more a Dravidian god (if one connects the pictures of the ascetic with a cobra protecting his head that are depicted on Harappan coins to Shiva), while Vishnu seems like a convenient way to add in different gods to the pantheon -- functioning in the same way as Osiris did, so both Rama and Krishna are incarnations of Vishnu (and also 8 other incarnations from Narasimha, the half-man, half-lion to the dwarf who could step across worlds) and Brahma is the creator but ignored)

Indra seems to have retained his place until the time of Emperor Asoka (300 BC) who proclaimed Buddhism as the theme religion of his Empire (which stretched over all of what is now Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, TAjikistan, eastern Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, all of Pakistan, India except what is now southern Tamil nadu, Bangladesh, Nepal) -- this act destroyed Vedic Hinduism and even when Hinduism reclaimed ground under the Nandas (post Christ), it was Brahmanical Hinduism with Manu rated highly and a Hinduism influenced by Mahavira and GAutama Buddha's rejection of the old gods.

This is reflected in the Jatakas and that era writing where there is a story of Indra attempting to disturb Shiva and shiva cursing him to have his body covered with va... (well, woman's private parts) -- and India from that point on becomes an object of ridicule in Hindu religion (he was already ridiculed in Jainism and Buddhism).

Jainism, with it's rejection of Vedic Hinduism also added in the concepts of ahimsa and vegetarianism --> Jains will not eat any meat or eggs or fish or any vegetable that grows under the ground.

The Jain idea of the universe is

They believe that EVERYONE on this diagram except the Siddhis/Adinaths (conquerors of death) i.e. those who live in Siddhasila are subject to death and reincarnation -- the gods may have powers, but they are just another one of those subject to the law of reincarnation.

They believe in endless cycles of time, and cycles within cycles (the hindu ability to generate high numbers is truly amazing -- their cosmology relates to billions of years).

To answer betty's question -- the Jains argue that all are subject to the laws of the universe and that it is illogical to argue for a being that exists out of it. While Maths did originate in the EAst (from the Babylonian concepts of 360 degress of a circle to the Hindu discover of 0, Natural Sciences too had their origins in the Near East - India, with the extensions into Greece (mainland Greece didn't get civilised until the fall of the Minoans on Crete c. 1700 BC IMHO). The Indians concentrated on maths, metallurgy and medicine.

To answer boatbums -- no one is needed to keep score in their theory as what you do influences your internal "aura" or whatever. This is completely alien to the Christian concepts so it is not Pelagianism either as this is not "doing good" but "cleansing your aura". Also, do note that in the Hindu system, at least the modern one, there is a higher god above the trinity called Ishwara (of whom Shiva is supposed to an embodiment of -- I don't quite follow that). Presumably he keeps score. however, Hindus believe that the universe ends when all (including the gods) are absorved into Ishwara and everything ends.

This ties in to their concept of maya (or that the entire universe is an illusion) which is what influenced the Gnostics from the Paulicians to the Cathars.

[Cronos]

One interesting correlationship is between the Aryanic gods from Dyaus Pita (Sky Father) to Jupiter and Zeus and Deus

also the storm god, Indra = Thor.

And, finally the two "families" of gods. In the Indic religions these are Devas and Asuras.

You see initially in the Rig Veda how some of the gods are referred to as Asuras -- like Varuna (god of wind) and Agni (god of fire).

By the time of Buddha, the Asuras were relegated to a lower family of supernatural beings, not to be worshipped but feared (an aside -- one of the now-famous Hindus gods, Ganesha/Ganapati, the elephant-headed god started out around the time of Christ as an asura or a spirit of malevolence like the rogue elephants who destroyed houses, but now he's the most popular Hindu god -- check Ganeshutsav).

Then, Christianity came and highly influenced Hinduism, from the Hindus taking the concept of a Trinity (only completely accepted around 900 AD) to their relegation of Asuras as demons.

In contrast, the opposite happened in the Irani Aryanic group where the Asura got prominence. Now, between Indic and Iranic languages there is a change of the sound S to H (so the people of Sindh (Indus valley) became Hindus) and the Irani gods were the Ahuras, with the Daeves being relegated to household gods, gods of the fireplace. These daeves were the same as the genius fireplace gods in Greek and Roman myths.

Zoroaster, around 1800-1700 BC was the prophet of his religion Zoroastrianism -- he took ONE God, Ahura Mazda and raised him as THE God of light. He consider there to be an equal god of darkness, Aingra Mainyu who represented evil. The Zoroastrian belief is that mankind should fight for Ahura Mazda against Aingra Mainyu. They should do this based on the Zoroastrian motif of "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds". Later sects of Zoroastrianism even went so far as to say that some humans were made by Ahura Mazda (Ormazd in some English poems) and others by Aingra Mainyu hence the idea that Ahura Mazda only loved some. They also had the concept of a Messiah-type figure, angels etc. (though their angels are bulls with the heads of men and wings!). It is fascinating on this Zoroastrian influence on Judaism post the exile.

Anyway, I digress -- the other branches of the Aryan family were the Greek-Romans who reduced it to one family of gods. The Romanic religion was far more primitive than the Hindu/Irani and more primitive than the GReek, hence whole-scale borrowing from the Greeks, who in turn were influenced by Semitic religions of the Canaanites/Pheonicians.

The Nordics/Germanics were probably the most primitive Aryanic religion retaining BOTH families of gods: Aesir and Vanir. No, wait, they would tie for primitiveness of their religion with the Celts.