1. Ajivikas Benimadhab Barua

B 132 A5B3

THE AJIVIKAS

UC-NRLF

B 3 351 479

By

B. M. BARUA, M.A., D.Lit.

PART I

USREITY OF CALCU ENINn THE ADVAN IVO N&P

DVANCEMENT OF LL LEARNINGYILn

Published by the

UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA

1920

GIFT OF HORACE W. CARPENTIER

SITATIS

OR NIENSIS IT SIGI MI

EX LIBRIS

THE AJIVIKAS

By

B. M. BARUA, M.A., D.Lit.

PART I

VERSITY OF CALCUT UTTAKONINNV37 *THE ADVAN DVANCEMENT OF LE

Published by the

UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA

1920

% PROBSTHAIN & Co. & Oriental Booksellers, & 241 Great Russell Street British Museum, LONDON, W.C.

3132 A533

CARPENTIER

THE AJIVIKAS

A Short History of their Religion and P.hilosophy

PART I

HISTORICAL SUMMARY

Introduction

The History of the Ajīvikas can broadly be divided into three periods in conformity with the three main stages of development through which their doctrines had passed. The general facts about these periods are summed up below with a view to indicate the precise nature of the problems that confront us in the study of each. The periods and problems are as follows :-

1. PRE-MAKKHALI PERIOD. Problems .- The rise of a religious order of wander- ing mendicants called the Ājīvika from a Vānaprastha or Vaikhānasa order of the hermits, hostile alike in attitude towards the religion of the Brahmans and the Vaikhānasas, hearing yet some indelible marks of the parent asrama; a higher synthesis in the new Bhiksu order of the three or four asramas of the Brahmans.

2. MAKKHALI PERIOD. Pronlems .- Elevation of Ajīvika religion into a philosophy of life at the hands of Makkhali

277847

THE ĀJĪVIKAS

Gosāla; his indebtedness to his predecessors, . relations with the contemporary Sophists, and originality of conception.

3. POST-MAKKHALI PERIOD. Problems-The further development of Ājīvika religion, the process of Aryan colonisation in India, the spread of Aryan culture, the final extinction of the sect resulting from gradnal transformation or absorption of the Ājīvika into the Digambara Jaina, the Shivaite and others; other causes of the decline of the faith; the influence of Ājīvika religion and philosophy on Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism; determination of the general character of a history of Indian religion.

4. PRE-MAKKHALI PERIOD. The History of the Ajīvikas commenced, as the Buddhist records indicate,1 with Nanda Vaccha who was succeeded in leadership of the sect by Kisa Samkicca. The third leader of the Ajīvikas and the greatest exponent of their religio-philosophy in the time of Buddha Gotama was Makkhali Gosāla who is often mentioned as the second in the Buddhist list of six heretical teachers.2 In the first four Nikayas and in the most of the Pali texts and commentaries Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Samkicca are hardly more than mere names,3 since these Buddhist sacred books keep us entirely in the dark regarding the personal history of the two teachers. It is only in the Canonical Jātaka Book and its commentary that we find the mention of a Kisa Vaccha among the seven

1 Majjhima, I, p. 238; I, p. 524 ; Angnttara, Part III, p. 384. 2 E.g., Dīgha. I, p. 48; Majjhima, IT, p. 2. 3 Papañcasūdani (Ceylonese edition), p. 463: Tattha Nando'ti tassa nāmam, Vaccho'ti gottamn; Kiso'ti tassa nāmam, Samkirco'ti gottam.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 3

chief pupils of a renowned Brahman hermit and teacher named Sarabhanga.1 The hermit, known as Jotipāla to his parents, is addressed in one of the Jātaka verses by his family name as Koņdañña (Sk. Kauņdiņya2). His hermitage was built on the banks of Godhāvarī, in the Kavittha forest. Secing that his hermitage became crowded, and there was no room for the multitude of asceties to dwell there he ordered most of his chief pupils to go elsewhere, taking with them many thousands of ascetics. But Kisa Vaccha was one of those who, following the instruction of their teacher, went away alone. He came to live in the city of Kumbhavatī, in the dominion of King Daņdakī. It is related in the Jataka that this king having sinned against Kisa Vaccha, the guileless hermit, was destroyed with his realm, excluding its three subordinate kingdoms, of which the Kings Kalinga, Atthaka and Bhīmaratha were among the lay followers of Sarabhanga.3 The Jataka literature of the Buddhists also preserves a brief account of another Brahman hermit called Samkicca, who like Sarabhanga is honoured as a Bodhisatta.+ It is to be judged from Samkicca's allusion to Kisa Vaccha's humiliation in the past that he was a successor of the latter.5 But neither Kisa Vaccha nor Samkicca is represented in the Jataka as a leader of the Ajīvika sect. Further, in view of the discrepancy that exists between the two names, by no stretch of imagination can Kisa Vaccha be transformed into Nanda Vaccha. The same difficulty arises in connection with the two names Sam- kicca and Kisa Samkicca, since the epithet Kisa (lean), applied to the second name, was apparently meant to

1 Jātaka No. 522. 2 Fausböll's Jātaka, V, p. 140. 3 Fausböll's Jātaka, V, p. 135. * Ibid, V, p. 151; V, p. 277. 3 Ibid, V, p. 267.

4 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

distinguish the Ajivika leader from all his namesakes, Samkicca and the rest. In point of faet, then, there is no other ground to justify the identification of Kisa Vaccha with Nanda Vaccha, or of Samkicca with Kisa Samkicca, than the fact that the views of Sarabhanga, the teacher of Kisa Vaccha, bear « priori, like those of the hermit Samkicca, a close resemblance to the ethical teaching of Makkhali Gosāla at whose hands the Ajīvika religion attained a philosophical character. Without being dogmatic on such a disputable point as this, I cannot but strongly feel that all possible enquiries con- cerning Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Samkicca are sure to lead the historian back to a typical representative of the Vānaprastha or Vaikhānasa order of Indian hermits, such as Sarabhanga. The same, I believe. will be the inevitable result, if we enquire into the Jaina history of Gosāla Mańkhaliputta. The 15th section of the 5th Jaina Anga, commonly known as the Bhagavatī Sūtra. contains a quaint story of six past reanimations of Gosāla, consummated by his present reanimation as Mankhali- putta.1 It is stated that Gosāla in his first human existence was born as Udāi Kuņdiyāyaņa who left his home early in youth for religious life, and that after having acquired Samkhāņam (higher knowledge), he underwent the seven changes of body by means of re- animation. The seven reanimations were undergone successively by Gosāla since his Udāi-birth in the bodies of (1) Eņejjaga (Sk. Riņañjaya), outside Rāyagiha, for 21 vears ; (2) Mallarāma, outside Uddandapura, for 21 years ; (3) Mandiya, outside Campa, for 20 years ; (4) Roha, outside Vāņārasi, for 19 years :

1 See extracts from the Bhagavati in Rockhill's Life of 'the Buddha, Appendix Il, p. 252.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 5

(5) Bhāraddāi (Sk. Bhāradvāja), outside Ālabhiyā, for 18 years ; (6) Ajjuna Gomāyuputta, outside Vesāli, for 17 years ; (7) Gosāla Mankhaliputta, at Sāvatthi in Hālābalā's pottery bazar, for 16 years. One need not be surprised if in this fanciful enu- meration and chronology of the seven reanimations under- gone by Gosāla since his Udāi-birth during a period of 117 years there is preserved a genealogical succession of seven Ajīvika leaders, together with a list of such sue- cessive geographical centres of their activities as Rāya- giha, Uddaņdapura, Campā, Vāņārasi, Ālabhiyā, Vesāli and Savatthi. This is at any rate the only legitimate inference to be drawn from the manner in which Gosāla Mankhaliputta is made to enumerate and describe his reanimations in the Bhagavati. It is not difficult to ascertain that Gosala used the word ' reanimation ' rather figuratively, in a secondary sense. He did not mean thereby that one teacher having died, was reborn as another, but that one leader having passed away, the spirit of his teaching was continued in a reanimated or rejuvenated form in the teaching of his successor. Let me cite a passage from Professor Leumann's translation of the extracts from the Bhagavati, Section XV, in illustration of the point at issue. Gosāla is represented, in the 16th year of his career as an Ajīvika teacher, as declaring : "With the seventh change. I left in Savatthi in Hālāhalā's pottery bazar the body of Ajjuņaga and entered that of Gosala Mankhaliputta for the space of 16 vears."' Here by the ' space of 16 years ' he referred, as is evident from his history in the Bhagavati, only to

1 Lenmaun's Extracts from the Bhagavati, XV. See Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, Appendix 1I, p. 254.

6 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

the interval of time reckoned from the year of his succes- sion as an Ajīvika leader, and certainly not to the period which had elapsed since his real birth-day. This suspicion is forced upon us as we remember that Savatthi, where he is said to have been reanimated in his seventh change, is the very city where he became first recognised as a teacher (Jina), and found shelter in the premises of a rich potter woman named Hālāhalā." The Bhagavati account does not mention the place where Udāi Kuņdivāvaņa (Sk. Udāyi Kauņdiņya) lived, nor does it state the reason why the Udai-birth was not counted among the past reanimations of Gosāla. But it is clearly stated that Udai, too, was a homeless recluse who had obtained higher knowledge. Can we not reason- ably suppose, even in the midst of such uncertainty, that Udāi Kuņdiyāyaņa of the Jaina Sūtra was, like Sarabhańga Koņdañña of the Buddhist Jātaka, just a typical represen- tative of an ancient religious order of the hermits? Are we not justified in presuming that the Ajīvika sect sprang originally from a Vānaprastha or Vaikhānasa order of the hermits and gained an independent foot- hold as the result of its gradual differentiation from the parent aśrama ? I would say yes, because accepting this as a working hypothesis the historian can well explain why the Ajivikas representing as they did a religious order of wandering mendicants, antagonistic in many ways to the religion of Brahmans and Hermits, should and did retain some elear traces of the austere mode of discipline followed generally by the hermits in the wood, austere enough to be classed promiscuously in certain Buddhist passages2 with the praetices of the Vanaprastha order. The Bhagavatī account of

1 Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, Appendix Il. p. 252. Cf. Hoernle's transla- tion of the Uvasagadasão, Appendix I, p. 4. ' Anguttara, Part I, p. 295.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 7

the past reanimations of Gosāla, quaint and fanciful though it is, enables the historian to carry back the history of the Ajīvikas for 117 years counted backwards from Gosala, and to suppose that a new Bhiksu order, having kinship with the Jainas and the Bnddhists, completely differentiated itself, within a century or more, from a Vānaprastha order from which it arose. It is, at all events, certain that the Ajivikas had a history before Gosala, and whether that history commenced with Nanda Vaccha or with Enejjaga, both the Buddhist and Jaina records lead us back to a Sarabhanga Kondañña or to a Udāi Kuņdiyāyana who might be regarded as a distin- guished representative of the ancient hermits. To deny this, I am afraid to say, will be just to record the names of a few predecessors of Gosāla, a procedure hitherto fol- lowed by the Indianists, e.g., Professor D. R. Bhandarkar and Dr. Hoernle. I have to premise, therefore, that the pre-Makkhali history of the Ajīvikas is the history of a formative period during which they brought about a radical change in the religious life of ancient India by the modification of certain rules and views of the hermits and by the gradual differentiation of their standpoint from that of others.

2. MAKKHALI PERIOD. The central figure in the history of the Ajīvikas is Makkhali Gosāla whose teaching served to supply a philosophie basis to Ajīvika religion. His career as a recluse covers, according to his history in the Bhagavati, a short period of 24 years, of which the first six were profitably spent in Paņiyabhūmi, in the company of Mahavīra whom he had met for the first time, in Nālamdā near Rayagiha. After a close association for six years the two ascetics separated in Siddhatthagama on account of a doctrinal difference that arose between them, and

8 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

never met afterwards but once in Savatthi shortly before the ignominious death of Gosala, which took place 16 vears before the Nirvana of Mahāvīra. The bone of contention was a theory of reanimation which Gosala formulated from his observation of periodical reanimations of plant-life, and generalised it to such an extent as to apply it indiserimi- nately to all forms of life.' 'Gosala for his part, after the separation, went to Savatthi, where in Hālāhala's potter-shop after a six months eourse of severe asceticism, he attained Jinahood.' There he hecame the leader of a sect, called the jīviya. In the 24th year of his mendicancy he was visited by six Disacaras or Wanderers with whom he discussed their respective theories. These Disācaras, convineed by his theory of 'the change through reanimation' (bautta- parihāra), placed themselves under his guidance. It is stated in the Bhagavatī that Gosāla had a severe attack . of fever a few weeks before his death and that his words and actions in a state of delirium gave rise to some new tenets and p'actices of the Ajiviyas, notably the doctrine of eight finalities (attha caramaim) and the use of four things as drinks and four substitutes. In spite of his last instruction that his body should be disposed of with every mark of dishonour, his disciples 'gave his body a public burial with all honours according to his original instructions.' His death was coincident with an important political event, namely, the war between King Kuņiya of Ainga and King Cedaga of Vesāli. There is indication in the Bhagavati account of Gosāla that he vicwed the grotesque practices of the Brāhman ascetics with contempt. It is related, for instance, that at the sight of the ascetie Vesiyayana 'sitting with up- raised arms and upturned face in the glare of the sun. while his body was swarming with lice,' he quietly dropped behind, and derisively enquired of the aseetic

" Evam khalu savvajivâvi paritțaparihāram pariharamti."

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 9

whether he was a sage or a bed of lice. His conduct provoked the Brahman ascetic so much that he attempted to strike Gosāla with his magic power. This unpleasant incident happened while Mahāvīra and Gosāla were travel- ling together, a few months before their separation, from the town Siddhatthagāma to Kummagāma and back.1 With regard to his early years, it is related in the Bhagavatī that he was born in the settlement Saravaņa, in the vicinity apparently of the city of Savatthi. He came of low parentage. His father was a Mankhali, i.e., a mendicant who earned his livelihood by showing a picture which he carried in his hand. Once on his wan- derings Mankhali came to Saravana and failing to obtain any other shelter, he took refuge for the rainy season in the cowshed (Gosāla) of a wealthy Brāhman Gobahula, where his wife Bhadda brought forth a son who became famous as Gosala Mankhaliputta. When grown up, he adopted the profession of his father, that is, of a Mankhali. In his wanderings, Gosala happened to meet the young ascetic Mahāvīra in Nālamdā, near Rāyagiha, and observing that the latter, although yet a mere learner, was received with great honour by a rich house- holcer of Rāyagiha, he approached Mahāvīra with the request to accept him as a disciple. It goes without saying that quaint humour and bitter irony runs through the Bhagavati-account of Mankhali- putta Gosāla. There is an attempt throughout, a conscious effort on the part of the Jaina author, to represent the greatest Ajīvika teacher as a person of most contemptible character, a man of low parentage, of low profession, who was induced to adopt the ascetic life by a prospect of material gain, an apostate disciple of Mahāvīra, of a more heinous character than another disciple, Jamāli, the son-in-law of Mahavīra. He is represented as an

1 Hoernle's translation of the Uvāsagadasão, Appendix I, p. 3. 2

10 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

ungrateful wretch who deserted the company of his teacher on account of a doctrinal difference, and shamelessly declared himself to be a Jina, denying his deep indebted- ness to his teacher. Even as a teacher and leader of the Ājīvika sect, he is said to have taught all false doctrines and erroneous views which did more harm than good to mankind. He is made to appear as a craze before his death in his words and actions, and confess his shame even to his own followers. But complete and full of historical truth though it is, the Bhagavati account must be considered as production of a later self-conscious age, and cannot therefore be accepted en bloc. As a canonical commentary (Viyāhapaņņatti, Vyākhyā-prajñapti), the Bhagavatī-sūtra must be taken as later in point of date than some of the Angas, e.g., Ayāramnga, Sūyagadamga and Uvāsagadasão, which are wanting in detail about the personal history of Gosala, and where the account of his views is more sober. The historian is apt to commit a great mistake and do injustice to Gosāla, if he accepts without proper examina- tion the Jaina account in the Bhagavati as a piece of genuine historical record. In view of other records coming from the Buddhists and the Brahmans which contradict in many points the statements in the Bhagavatī, no implicit reliance can surely be placed on all that the Jaina would have us believe. On closely examining the literature of the Buddhists, we notice that in all the later accounts there is a similar conscious attempt to reconstruct the early history of Gosāla in such a manner as to make him appear as a person of low parentage and vicious character. In these respects the later Jaina and Buddhist traditions agree. For instance, Buddhaghosa in his commentaries, speaks of Gosāla as a servant in the household of a rich man, who walking on a muddy piece of ground, with an

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 11

oil-pot in his hand, stumbled from carelessness and began to run away through the fear of his master. The latter ran up and caught the edge of his garment, and he letting go his cloth, fled away naked (acelako hutvā).1 I leave it to the sober critic to judge if the above story of Gosāla was not a fiction invented by the Bud- dhist commentator in order to account for the fact that Makkhali was a naked ascetic as all the Ajīvikas were. Buddhaghosa agrees with the Jaina historian in the Bhagavatī in relating that Makkhali came to be called Gosāla from the circumstance of his being born in a cowshed, although he does not expressly mention, like the Jaina, that the name was given by his parents. But the Buddhist commentator differs entirely from the Jaina with regard to the etymology of the name Makkhali, just as Panini, the most celebrated Sanskrit grammarian, differed in this respect from the Jainas and Buddhists as well as from his own commentators. While the Jaina compiler of the Bhagavati derived the name Mankhali from Mankha, i.e., a picture carried by a mendicant in his hand (or better, as Dr. Hoernle suggests, the picture of a deity which a beggar carried about him and tried to extract alms from the charitable by showing it, just as in the present day in Bengal such beggars usually carry crude pictures or representations of Sītalā or Olābibi, and in Puri they carry pictures of Jagannath), the Buddhist commentator Buddhaghosa had recourse to a more fanci- ful etymology, vis., that the name Makkhali was derived from the warning of his employer expressed in the words "Tāta, mā khalîti," i.e., "My dear man, take care lest you stumble !"2

1 Sumangala Vilāsinī, I, p. 144. 2 Sumangala Vilāsinī, I, p. 144. See Hoernle's Translation of the Uvāsagadasão, App. II, p. 29; Spence Hardy's Mannal of Buddhism, p. 301. Cf. Manorathapūraņi, the commentary on the Anguttaranikāya (Ceylonese edition), p. 287. Makkhalîti mā khalîti vacanam upādāya evam laddhanāmo titthakaro.

12 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

Against these ingenious etymologies of Mankhali and Makkhali, we obtain from Pāņini an important sūtra setting forth the real import of Maskariņa, the Sanskrit form of the name. Pāņini in the sūtra VI. 1. 154, de- scribes the Maskarinas as a class of wanderers who carried a maskara or bamboo staff about them. au "Maskara-maskariņo veņu-parivrājakayoļ." On the other hand, Patañjali in his comments on the above sūtra of Pāņini, suggests that the Maskariņa was called Maskariņa not so much because this class of wanderers carried about them a maskara or bamboo staff as because they taught "Mā krita karmāņi, mā kțita karmāņi, ete.,"-"Don't perform actions, don't perform actions ; quietism (alone) is desirable to you."! 'The later glosses on the same sūtra in Kaiyata's Pradīpa and the Kāsika-vțitti do not merit any further consideration, as these are based upon the authority of Patañjali's Mahābhāsya, and all point to the fact that the maskariņas denied the efficacy of action.2 With regard to the relation of Makkhali with Mahā- vira, the Buddhist records differ from the Jaina which seeks to represent the former as an apostate disciple of the latter, who became separated from his teacher after a close association for six years spent in Paņiyabhūmi. This account of Makkhali in the Bhagavatī is contra- dicted by certain statements met with in the same sūtra and elsewhere.3 First, in the Bhagavatī itself it is stated that Gosāla became recognised as a Jina and a leader of the Ajīviyas two years before Mahavira's Jinahood, and

1 Bhandarkar's 'Ajivikas,' Indian Antiquary, Vol. XLI, 1912, p. 289 ; Hoernle's 'Ajivikas,' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Patañjali says, "maskaro' syāstîti maskarī parivrājakaḥ. Kim tarhi mā krita karmāņi mā krita karmāņi sāntirvaļ śreyasîtyâhāto maskarī parivrājakaļ." 2 See the quotations in Bhandarkar's 'Ajivikas,' Ind. Ant., Vol. XLI, 1912, p. 270. 3 The point is discussed in Hoernle's Translation of the Uvasagadasão, p. 111, f. n. 255.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 13

that he predeceased the latter by sixteen years. Secondly, the Kalpasūtra rel ates that Mahavīra lived one year in Paņiyabhūmi and six years in Mithilā. Both the Jaina and Buddhist records agree in speaking of Gosāla as a leader of the Ajīvika sect and the power- ful exponent of the Ajīvika system. They also agrec in calling the Ājīvikas naked asceties (acelakas), in differen- tiating their rules of life from those of the hermits of the Vanaprastha order,1 in magnifying their uncleanli- ness, in emphasizing their corruption of morals, in imputing a secular motive to their religious life, and in mercilessly criticising their fatalistie crecd. In both the records, Savatthi is mentioned as the Ājīvika head- quarters.' In some of the Buddhist passages we meet with the form Ajīvaka, and the term in either form is ex- plained as meaning a mendicant worse than a person with household ties.3 In a Dialogue of the Jaina Sūtra Kritânga, Ārdraka, a Jaina teacher, openly accuses Gosāla of sexual immorality.+ The Mahāsaccaka sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya preserves a Dialogue where Saccaka, the Jaina, in reply to Buddha's question whether Ajīvikas or the followers of Nanda Vaccha, Kisa Samkicca and Makkhali Gosāla, practised the most austere mode of bodily discipline, says that they indulged in all sorts of sensual pleasures.5 The Buddhist literature contains a love story

1 The rules of the Ajiviyas, set forth in the Anpapātika Sūtra (Leumann's edition, p. 8O, sec. 120), are the samc as those stated in the Majjhima Nikāya, I, p. 318, and in the Dīgha, I, p. 165, see. 14. Again, the rules of the Vanaprastha hermits, described in the above Jaina Upãnga, p. 68, sec. 74, are similar to those stated in the Digha, I, p. 166, sec. 14. 2 That the Ajivikas were naked aseetics and that Sävatthi was their head quar- ters are clear from two episodes in the Vinaya Mahāvagga VI. 2; VIII. 15. Cf. Ind. Ant., Vol. XLI (1912), p. 288. 3 Majjhima Nikāya, I, p. 483. * Sūtra Kritânga (ed. Dhanapati), II. 6. Cf. Jaina-Sūtras, Pt. II, p. 411 : "those who use cold water, eat seeds, accept things especially prepared for them, and have intercourse with women, are (no better than) honseholders, but they are 110 Sramaņas." s Majjhinia, I, p. 238.

14 THE ĀJÏVIKAS

of an Ajīvika named Upaka, who married Cāpā, the fowler's daughter; and Upaka describes himself as having been a latthihattha, i.e., a wandering mendicant with a staff in hand. I have reason to believe that in the Buddhist stories of Ciñca1 and Sundarī2 an evidence is lurking of the immorality and lack of principle of the Ajīvikas, who did not scruple to get the Buddha into trouble by spreading damaging rumours about his character and getting up a murder case through the instrumentality of those two of their womenfolk. Although the stories declare indefinitely that all the heretics were allied in this conspiraey, it ie difficult to conecive that such an alliance was possible because of the fact that Savatthi, where the scene is laid, was predominantly the headquarters of the Ājīvikas, and that the Ajīvikas were in conflict with other heretical sects. But it can be imagined that both Ciñca 3 and Sundarī + either belonged to the Ajīvika order, or had, at any rate, very intimate connection with it. Suffice it to say that we have positive statement from the Buddhist literature5 that the Ajīvika community, like the Jaina or the Buddhist, consisted of recluses and householders, both male and female. It is clear that the corruption of their morals which the Buddhists and the Jainas insinuate and exaggerate, is not without founda- tion, and that some individual cases of moral transgression have only been generalised by their opponents and applied to the whole sect. For it is diffieult to imagine that if the Ājīvikas were as a body so viciously immoral and encroached on the deceney of the civic society, they could retain, as they did, an important position among the

1 Jātaka, I, pp. 280, 437, 440 ; II, pp. 121, 160 ; III, p. 298 ; IV, p. 197 f. 2 Jataka, II, p. 415 f. ; Dhammapada-Comy. on Verse 306. 3 She is described in the Jātaka, I, p. 280, as a female wandering ascetic in Sāvatthi (paribbājikā Sāvatthiyam). * Sundarī, too, is described similarly, e.g., in the Jātaka, Il, p. 415. 5 E. g., Aiguttara, Pt. III, p. 304.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 15

rival sects. On the other hand, taking a man as man, and a woman as woman, we can well understand how such states of things came to be among the Ajīvikas, as among all the Orders, the Jaina or the Buddhist, the Saiva or the Sakta, the Vaișnava or the Christian. The Uvāsagadasāo and the Bhagavatī Sūtra make mention of a few rich lay disciples of Gosāla belonging to the Vaiśya class, e.g., potters and bankers, such as Kuņdakuliya, a citizen of Kampillapura, a banker1; Saddālaputta, a rich potter of Polāsapura2; Hālāhalā, in whose potter-shop in Sāvatthi Gosala found shelter and spent the greater part of his ascetic-life 3; and Ayampula, a citizen of Savatthi.4 The Majjhima Nikāya mentions a coach-builder who belonged to the Ajīvika sect.5 According to the Dham- mapada commentary Migāra, a banker of Sāvatthi was a lay follower of the Ajīvikas.6 That the Ajīvika community consisted of recluses and householders, both male and female, is well borne out by the Buddhist version of Makkhali's doctrine of chaļâ- bhijātiyo-division of mankind into six abhijātis or mental types. Gosāla is said to have placed the Ajīvika house- holders 7 in the Yellow class, the Ajīvika mendicants and the Ajivakinis in the White class, and the three Ajīvika leaders including himself in the Supremely White class.8

1 Uvāsagadasāo (ed. Hoernle), Lecture VI. e Ibid, Sec. VII. 3 Leumann's Extracis from the Bhagavati, XV. See Rockhill's Life of the Bnddha, Appendix II, p. 252. Hoernle's translation of the Uvasagadasao, Appendix I, p. 4 ff. * Hoernle's Appendix, ibid, p. 9. 5 Majjhima Nikāya, I, p. 31. e Dhammapada-Comy. on Verse 53. 7 Lit. "the householders who wear white clothes and are the adherents (sāvaka) of the unclothed one (acelaka)." Hoernle's Appendix II, ibid, p. 22. · Aūguttara Nikāya, part III, p. 384: "haliddâbhijāti paññattā: gihi odātava- sanā acelakasāvakā ...... sukkâbhijāti pañattā ajīvakā ājīvakiniyo ...... paramā sukkâ- bhijati paññattā : Nando Vaccho, Kiso Samkicco, Makkhali Gosāla." Note that the doctrine is wrongly attributed to Pūraņa Kassapa. Cf. Dīgha Nikāya I, p. 53; Sumangala Vilāsinī, I, p. 162, where the doctrine is attributed to Makkhali Gosāla.

16 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

In the Buddhist texts,' Makkhali Gosāla and other five heretical teachers, Pūraņa Kassapa, Nigaņțha Nāta- putta (Mahavīra) and the rest, are spoken of in the same terms as " the head of an order, of a following, the teacher of a school, well known and of repute, as a sophist, revered by the people, a man of experience, who has long been a recluse, old and well-stricken in vears."" In the canonical Jātaka Book,3 the Heretics are compared in a body to a crow, stripped of its gain and fame after the appearance of the crested and sweet-voiced peacock, while the com- mentator, who identifies the crow of the Jataka story with Nigantha Nāthaputta + compares the Heretics with the fire-flies whose faint light faded before the rising glory of the sun, i.e., the Buddha. Similarly, the Divyâvadāna contains a curious story of two magic-fights in each of which the Buddha overwhelmed the six Heretics by his superior Riddhi, once in Rajagriha and the second time in Śravastī.6 There are again canonical Discourses where the Samana Gotama is described as a younger contem- porary of the six Titthakaras, both younger by birth and junior by renunciation.7 This receives confirmation from the Jaina tradition, recorded in the Bhagavatī, that Gosāla predeceased Mahāvīra by 16 years,8 and from the Buddhist tradition, recorded in the Sāmagāma and

1 Dīgha Nikāya, I, pp. 47-49: "Samghī c'eva gaņī ca gaņâcariyo ca ñāto yasassī titthakaro sādhn sammato bahu-janassa rattaññū cira-pabbajito addhagato vayo anuppatto." Cf. Sutta Nipāta, III, No. 6, p. 91 ; Milindapañho p. 4. ' Dialogues of the Baddha, II, p. 66. 3 See Bāvern Jātaka in Fansböll's Jātaka, No. 339, Vol. III, p. 128. + Fausböll's Jātaka, Vol. III, p. 128: Tadā kāko Nigantho Nāthaputto. 5 Ibid, p. 126: Titthiya hi anuppanne Buddhe labhino ahesum, nppanne pana hatalābhaskkārā suriyûggamane khajjopanakâ viya jātā. Divyâvadāna, p. 143 foll. The Heretics are named Pūraņaļ Kāsyapo, Maskarī Gośalaiputrab, Samjayī Vairattīpntrah, Ajitaḥ Kesakambalaļ, Kakuda Kātyāyano, Nirganthab Jñātiputraḥ. 7 Sutta Nipāta, p. 91; Samaņo hi Gotamo daharo c'eva jātiyā, navo ca pabbajjaya. Cf. Samyutta, I, 70. ' See ante, p. 13.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 17

such other Suttas, that Nigantha Nataputta, i.e., Mahāvīra, predeceased the Buddha by a few years,1 the decease of the former at Pava having been followed by a schism dividing his disciples, the Niganthas, into two rival parties.2 The Milindapañho on the other hand, represents the six Heretics as if they were all contem- poraries of King Milinda, identified by Dr. Rhys Davids with the Greco-Bactrian ruler Menander, who reigned, according to the Buddhist tradition, five centuries after the Buddha's Parinibbana.3 But remembering that they are described in an older canonical discourse, vis., the Samaññaphala Sutta, exactly in the same way as the contemporaries of Ajātasattu, King of Magadha, I have reason to suspect that the Milinda-story grew out of literary plagiarism involving an anachronism, which can by no means be either explained away or harmonized with the earlier and more authentic chronology furnished by the Jaina and Buddhist texts. The Milinda account of six Heretics must accordingly be rejected as spurious and false. The deep mystery which hangs like mist over the relation of Makkbali with Mahāvīra cannot fully be unravelled in this introduction, the express purpose of which is to present, on a traditional basis, an outline of the history of the Ājīvikas. Suffice it to say, that the evidences derived from either the Jaina or the Buddhist sources of information, do not bear out the Jaina pious belief that Gosala was one of the two false disciples of Mahavīra, and tend rather to prove the contrary. I mean that if the historian be called upon to pronounce a definite opinion on this disputed question he cannot but say that

1 Majjhima Nikāya, II, p. 143: Ekam samayam Bhagavā Sakkesu viharati Sāmagāme. Tena kho pana samayena Nigaņtho Nātapntto Pāvāyam adhunā kālakato hoti. Tassa Kālakiriyāya bhinnā Nigaņthā dvedhikajātā bhaņdanajātā kalahajātā vivādâpannā aññamaññam mukhasattîhi vitndantā viharanti. 2 Trenckner's Milinda, p. 4 foll. 3 Dīgha Nikāya, I, p. 47 foll. 3

18 THE ĀJÏVIKAS

indebtedness, if any, was more on the side of the teacher than on that of one who is branded by the Jaina as a false disciple. And the critic, before judging one way or the other, shall do well to consider the following points :- 1. That the priority of Gosala regarding Jinahood before Mahāvīra can be established beyond doubt by the history of Mankhaliputta in the Bhagavati, confirmed in some important respects by the history of Mahāvīra in the Kalpa Sūtra. It is expressly stated in the Kalpa Sūtra that out of the 72 years of Mahavīra's life, he lived 30 years as householder, and spent 42 years as recluse, viz., 12 as a learner (Sekha) and 30 as a Jina or Kevalin. Again out of the 12 years of his Sekhahood, he spent upwards of one year as a clothed mendicant, while in the second year he became a naked ascetic.1 That is to say, he spent the first year as a member of the religious order of Pārsva- natha, whose followers, called Nirgranthas, used to wear clothes, but in the second year he left that order and joined the Ajīvikas. "The latter year," as Dr. Hoernle specifies, "coincides with that in which Mahāvīra, accord- ing to the Bhagavatī, met Gosāla and attracted him as his (apparently, first) disciple."2 Of the remaining ten years, he spent six in association with Gosala. If out of the 24 years of his ascetic life, Gosāla spent 8 years as a learner and 16 as a Jina, it follows that after their separation, Mahavīra had to wait four years longer before his Jinahood, while Gosāla attained this exalted state within two years from the date of separation. Dr. Hoernle admits that this priority of Gosala in regard to Jinahood, before Mahāvīra is a noteworthy point.'3 But here I

1 Jacobi's Kalpa-Sūtra, Sec. 117. 2 Hoernle's translation of the Uvāsagadasão, p. 110, f.n. 253. 3 Ibid, p. 111, f.n, 253.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 19

would ask, is it the right conclusion to be drawn from this, as Dr. Hoernle has done, that Gosala was originally a disciple of Mahāvīra, a fact which, according to him, 'naturally enough explains the intense hostility towards him, of Mahāvīra, who resented the presumption of a disciple in taking precedence of his master ?'1 How can it be imagined that Mahāvīra received Gosāla as a disciple at a time when he himself was a mere learner ? Are not a learner and a teacher in his case a contra- diction in terms ? And can we not reasonably understand that neither Gosāla nor Mahāvīra was technically a disciple or a teacher, but two intelligent members of the same religious order, two disciples of a eommon teacher, and two eomrades under the guidance of an Ājīviya leader? It is clear from the Bhagavati story of the seven re- animations of Gosāla that Ajjuņa was the Ajīviya leader before their separation, and that Gosāla succeeded him two years after his separation from Mahāvīra. The general history of Mahāvīra, so far as it can be gathered from the Jaina literature, goes to show that he attained Jinahood four years after his separation from Gosāla, when he founded a new Nirgrantha order with which the old order of Parśvanātha was amalgamated afterwards, through the intercession of Keśi and Gautama into a common Jaina school of religio-philosophy.2 The Bhaga- vatī account does not precisely state what sort of relation Gosāla had with the Ajīviyas before his separation from Mahavīra, but it will certainly be going too far away from the historical truth to suppose that he had no con- nexion whatever with them until after he was separated from the latter. Apart from this, there are a few other facts which go to disprove the Jaina tradition. These are-

1 Hoernle's translation of the Uvasagadasao, p. 111, f.n. 2 Uttarâdhyayana, Lec. XXIII.

20 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

2. That in the Jaina and Buddhist fragments on the Ājīvika views and religious observanees there are preserved certain terms and phrases of Gosala which are neither Ardha-Magadhi nor Pali, but represent at once some older vehiele of expression or literary medium, more closely allied, as will be shown later, to the Dialect, i.e., earlier than the more literary forms of Magadhi Prakrits, i.e., the languages of the Niganthas and Sakyaputtiya samanas. 3. That the Bhagavatī account of Gosāla goes to prove that he was conversant with the Ajīviya literature consisting of eight Mahanimittas and two Maggas, the former of which probably formed, as Professor Leumann conjectures, part of the original Jaina canon, though no trace of them ean be found in the existing one 1 4. That both the Jaina and Buddhist interpretation and criticism of Gosāla's views and practices indicate that they belonged to an earlier stage of religious evolution, older at least than the Jaina or the Buddhist system where the Ajīvika creed is sharply eriticized and consider- ably modified and improved. 5. That the intense hostility of Mahāvira towards Gosāla cannot reasonably be brought forward as a proof of the latter's discipleship and insincerity, since there is a strong evidence to prove that the Buddha, though neither a teacher nor a disciple of Gosala, openly denounced him as the greatest enemy of mankind2 and considered his to be the worst of all heresies, like unto a piece of hair-garment which is cold in cold weather and hot in the heat.3

1 Rockhill's Life of the Bnddha, Appendix II, p. 249, f. n. 1. 2 Ańguttara Nikāya, Part 1, p. 33: Nâham bhikkhave aññam ekapuggalam pi samanupassāmi yo evam bahnjanahitâya pațipanno bahujanâsukhāya bahuno janassa anatthāya ahitāya dukkhāya devamanussānam yathayîdam bhikkhave Makkhali Moghapnriso. Cf. ibid, p. 287. 3 Ibid, p. 286: Seyyathâpi bhikkhave yāni kānici tantavntānam vatthānam kesakambalo tesam patikittho akkhāyati. Kesakambalo bhikkhave sīte sīto nņhe uņho dubbaņņo duggandho dukkhasamphasso, evam eva kho bhikkhave yāni kānici puthu samaņappavādānam Makkhali-vādo tesam pațikittho akkhāyati.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 21

6. And lastly, that the hostile attitude of Mahāvīra towards Gosala ought, as in such other historical instances as those of Buddha and Mahāvīra, Aristotle and Plato, Rāmānuja and Śankara, or of Kant and Hume, to be viewed as a positive proof of priority, the logical priority at least, of the latter whose views are sharply criticised by the former, leaving out of the question, in this particular instance, whether the thinker so criticised was a younger or an elder contemporary of the critic himself. After a careful consideration of these points along with the main theses of Gosala's philosophy, I am tempted to hold with Prof. Hermann Jacobi, that "the greatest influence on the development of Mahāvīra's doctrine, must ......... be ascribed to Gosala, the son of Makkhali," and that " we have no reason to doubt the statement of the Jaina, that Mahāvīra and Gosāla for some time practised austerities together; but the relation between them probably was different from what the Jainas would have us believe." I am tempted, in other words, to believe that Gosāla represents, as a teacher at least, an earlier stage of thought-evolution and religious discipline, earlier at any rate than the period covered by the early history of Jainism and Buddhism as expounded by Mahāvīra and Gotama. Gosāla must be ranked among the five heretical teachers who together with Nigantha Nātaputta (Mahā- vīra) are distinguished as six titthiyas from the Brahman wanderers on the one hand, and from the Brahman hermits and legislators on the other. They are distinguished as a class of recluses and sophists who differed from the Brahmans in character, intelligence, earnestness, purpose and method. An analysis of Gosāla's tenets goes to prove that he belonged as a thinker to the sophistic age when biological consideration and animistic belief were

Jaina Sutras, Pt. Il, Introd., p. xxix.

22 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

predominant in the realm of religious thought and meta- physical speculation. The creative genius of the older Upanișad period, the period of the Araņyakas and the Brahmana Upanisads, was followed by a new spirit of free-thinking and sophism under the influence of which the intuitional philosophy of the Upanisad itselt became sectarian at the hands of the Brahman wan- derers, a chaotic state of conflicting ideas and religious sentiments when philosophy failed to provide a correct and comprehensive view of the universe, and a sound and rational theory of life, acting as an unfailing guide to human conduct and affording a general standard for the determination of ethical values. In this respect the Dogmatists, the Scepties and the Moralists are put by the Jainas and the Buddhists, with certain reservations, in the category of Akriyavadins-the upholders of the doctrine of non-action. It also may be inferred from the Jaina or the Buddhist description of these three classes of thinkers that they all agreed in recognising in diverse ways that quietism was after all the summum bonum of spiritual life. Now, in the absence of any records from Gosāla himself or from his followers, it is an extremely difficult task to endeavour with success to render a complete and faithful account of Gosāla's views and practices. A few isolated fragments have survived, no doubt, in the existing literatures of the Jainas, the Buddhists and the Brahmans, but these too are so much coloured by sectarian bias and so very contradietory in places that it is well nigh impossible to bring them all into a focus. Before any way can be made, evidences must be collected from all the possible sources of information, and the evidences thus collected must be sifted with the minutest care. Over and above this, a tremendous effort of imagi- nation and genial intellectual sympathy are essential at

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 23

every step. So far as the sources of information are con- cerned, I may here remain content with mentioning the following :- 1. Jaina Sources-(a) Sūyāgadamga (I. 1.2.1-14; I. 1.4.7-9; II. 1.29; II. 6) with Śīlāńka's Tīkā. (b) Bhagavatī Sūtra (Saya XV, Uddesa I) with A bhayadeva's Commentary, (c) Leumann's Das Aupapātika Sūtra (Secs. 118 and 120). 2. Buddhist Sources-(a) Sāmaññaphala Sutta (Dīgha I, pp. 53-54) with Buddhaghosa's commentary. (b) Samyutta Nikāya, III, p. 69, ascribes the first portion of the Samaññaphala account of Gosāla's views, N'atthi hetu, n'atthi paccayo, etc., to Pūraņa Kassapa. (c) Ańguttara Nikāya (Pt. I, p. 286) with the Manorathapūraņi confounds Makkhali Gosāla apparently with Ajita Kesa-kambala. (d) Ańguttara Nikāya (Pt. III, pp. 383-84) with the Manoratha-Pūrani represents Kassapa as if he were a disciple of Makkhali Gosāla. (e) Mahāsaccaka Sutta (Majjhima I, p. 231), cf. also I, p. 36. (f) The Chinese and Tibetan versions of the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, translated in Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, where the doctrines of the six Heretics are hopelessly mixed up. (g) Trenckner's Milinda-Pañho, p. 5. (h) Mahābodhi-Jātaka (No. 528), cf. Āryasura's Jātaka-Mālā, XXIII.

24 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

Comparing these sources and noting their points of agreement and difference I may mention just a few characteristic features of Gosala's philosophy :-- 1. Gosāla was, to start with, the propounder of a 'doctrine of the change through re-animation' (pautta- parihāravāda),1 or, hetter, of a theory of natural trans- formation (pariņamavada),2 which he came to formulate from the generalisation of the periodical re-animations of plant life. This is the central idea of his system according to the Bhagavati account. 2. 'The basic idea of this theory as explained and illustrated in the Bhagavatī and in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta implies a process of natural and spiritual evolution through ceaseless rounds of births and deaths,3 i.e., samsara-suddhi, as the doctrine is aptly summarised in the Majjhima* and in the Mahābodhi Jātaka.5 3. The Parinamavada seeks to explain the diversity of the organic world by these three principles -- (a) Fate (niyati=niyai)6 (b) Species (sangati=sangai '=pariyāya)8 (c) Nature (bhāva=sabhāva)9 "Niyati-sangati-bhāva-pariņatā."10

1 The term is so rendered by Prof. Lenmann. See his translation of the extracts from the Bhagarati, XV, in Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, Appendix II, p. 251. 2 The term is implied in the adjective parinata, cf. the Dīgha 1, p. 53. 3 Dīgha, I, p. 54: sandhāvitvā samsaritvā dukhass' antam karissanti, cf. the Bhagavati text qnoted by Prof. Leumann (Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, App. II, p. 253, f. n. 3) :- anupurveņam khavaittā pacchā sijjhanti bujjhanti jāva antamn karenti. * Majjhima, I, p. 31. 5 Fausböll's Jātaka, V, p. 228. The Prakrit form of niyati ocenrs in the Sūyagadauga, I, 1.2.4. 7.' The forms sangai and pariyaya are to be found in the Sūyagadanga, 1, 1.2.3; I, 1.4.8. 9 According to Buddhaghosa's comment, bhāvo=sabhāvo, Sumangalavilāsinī, I, p. 161. 10 Dīgha, I, p. 53. Buddhaghosa explains pariņata as meaning diversifed (nānāppakāram pattā).

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 25

4. The organic world is characterised by six constant and opposed phenomena, ciz., gain and loss, pleasure and pain, life and death. "Savvesim pāņāņaim savvesim bhūyāņai Savvesim jīvāņaim savvesim sattāņaim imāim saņaikkamaņiāim vāgaraņāim vāgarai-tam lābham, alābham, suham dukhamı, jiveyamı, maraņamn."1 5. The Parinamavada involves a conception of the infinity of time with the recurrent cycles of existence, and the same theory conveys a great message of hope by inculcating that even a dew-drop is so destined as to attain in course of natural evolution to the highest state of perfection in humanity. 6. The longest period or duration fixed for the evolution of life from the meanest thing on earth to the greatest in man covers 84 hundred thousand Mahākalpas.2 7. This necessitates a division of time into Mahā- kalpas, Kalpas, Antarakalpas and so forth, during which the uuiverse of life progresses onward along the fixed path of evolution.3 8. The theory of progression itself necessitates the classification of the living substances on different methods, and groups them on a graduated scale in different types of existence which are considered as unalterably fixed. 9. The Parināmavāda seeks to establish, even by its fatalistic creed, a moral government of law in the universe where nothing is dead, where nothing happens by chance, and where all that is and all that happens and is experienced are unalterably fixed as it were by a pre-determined law of nature.

1 The passage is an extract from the Bhagavati, Saya, XV, Uddesa I. Bhagavati text quoted by Prof. Leumann. See Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, App. II, p. 253, f. n. 3; Dīgla, I, p. 54. 3 Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, App. II, pp. 253-54; Dīgha, 1, p. 54. 4

26 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

10. It teaches that as man is pre-destined in certain ways and as he stands highest in the gradations of existence, his freedom, to be worth the name, must be one within the operation of law, and that the duty of man as the highest of beings is to conduct himself according to law, and so to act and behave himself as not to trespass on the rights of others, to make the fullest use of one's liberties, to be considerate and discreet, to be pure in life, to abstain from killing living beings, to be free from earthly possessions, to reduce the necessaries of life to a minimum, and to strive for the best and highest, i.e., Jinahood, which is within human powers.1 11. The fatalistic creed which is a logical outcome of Parinamavada confirms the popular Indian belief that action has its reward and retribution, and that heaven and hell are the inevitable consequences hereafter of merits and demerits of this life. 12. In accordance with the deterministic theory of Gosāla, man's life has to pass through eight develop- mental stages or periods (atthapurisabhūmiyo),2 at each of which the physical growth proceeds side by side with the development of the senses and of mind with its moral and spiritual faculties3; and from this underlying theory of interaction of body and mind it follows that bodily discipline (kāya-bhāvanā) * is no less needed for purifica- tion of soul than mental (citta-bhāvanā). 13. The division of mankind, or, better, of living beings, into six main types (abhijātis) involves a concep- tion of mind which is colourless by nature and falls into different types-nīlakāya, pītakaya, etc .- by the colonring of the different habits and actions, and hence the supreme

1 Dīgha, I, p. 54; Aūguttara, III, pp. 383-84; Majjhima, I, p. 238; Aupapātika Sūtra, Sec. 120. : Digha, I, p. 54. 9 Sumangala-Vilasinī, I, pp. 162-163. · Majjhima, I, p. 238.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 27

spiritual effort of man consists in restoring mind to its original purity, i.e., rendering it colourless or supremely white by purging it of all impurities that have stained it.1 By a glance at these features one can easily diseern that Gosala's philosophy was not entirely a new growth in the country, but one which bore a family likeness to the older and existing doctrines and theories in the midst of which it arose, with a new synthetic spirit seeking to weld together the higher metaphysics of the Upanisads and the civic and moral life of the Aryan people into one scheme of religious ethics. Considered in this light, a better understanding and fuller appreciation of the theoretic aspect of his philosophy and the practical side of his religion are impossible without a comparative study of the older theories and current beliefs which, as I expect to show in the following pages, constituted a natural environment for his own system. Accordingly, the history of Makkhali-period is to be conceived as a process of continued development of thought whereby the rigorous religious discipline and the simpler ethical doc- trines of the pre-Makkhali teachers of the Ajīvikas were irmly established on a deeper scientific theory of evolution, side by side with and in the close environment of several conflicting theories and mutually contradictory dogmas, all interconnected in the organic development of Indian thought. 3. POST-MAKHALI PERIOD. Mankhaliputta Gosāla died, according to the Jaina evidence, at Hālāhalā's potter-shop in Sāvatthi, in the twenty-fourth year of his ascetic life (leaving behind him a glorious record of his career as a leader of the Ājīviyas and a teacher of philosophy). He had a severe attack of

1 Dīgha, I, 53; Ańguttara, III, pp. 383-84; Sumangala-Vilāsinī, 1, p. 162; Majjhima, I, p. 36.

28 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

typhoid fever of which he died, and died, as may be infer- red from a prediction of Mahavīra's, in seven days ; and he predeceased, as it is implied in another prediction of Mahāvīra, the latter by sixteen years. His death (better Nirvāņa) was coineident with an important political event, viz., the war between Kūņiya (Ajātasattu), formerly the Viceroy of Anga and then the King of Magadha after the usurpation of his father's throne, and Cedaga (Sk. Cetaka), the King (better, a powerful citizen) 1 of Vesāli. Some important details are preserved in the Bhagavatī of the suffering and intense pain that attended Gosāla's fever. The Jaina historian is fond of looking upon his fever with its attendant ailments as the dire consequence of a magic duel which he had so foolishly fought with Mahavīra, his former teacher and then his superior rival. These details are important, as I presently expect to show, as having a far-reaching effect on the course of Ājīvika religion. The Bhagavatī account 2 mentions, among others, the following facts :- (a) Visit of a company of six Disacaras or Vagabonds (better, Wanderers) to Sāvatthi-Sāņa, Kalanda, Kaņiyāra, Attheda, Aggivesāyaņa and Ajjaņa Gomāyuputta, with whom Gosāla discussed their respective theories in the twenty-fourth year of his asceticism. (b) Acceptance of Gosāla's theory of re-animation by the Disacaras and their conversion to the Ajīviya faith. (c) Extracts made by the Disacaras, according to their own ideas, from the ten canonical hooks, vis., the eight Mahanimittas eontained in the Puvvas and the two Maggas. (d) Deduction of six principles, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, life and death, from the teaching of the Mahā- nimittas.

1 Jaina-Sūtras, Part 1, Introd., p. xii. ' Hoernle's Appendix I, pp. 4-11.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 29

(e) Visit of Mahavira to Sāvatthi, accompanied by his chief disciple Indabhni and by Aņamda, Savvâņubhūi and Supakkhatta among his other disciples. (f) Gosāla's conversation with Anamda whom he tried to convince by a story of some merchants and a fierce serpent in an ant-hill, that he possessed magic powers of destruction which the latter must beware of. (g) His interview with Mahāvīra near Kotthaga-ceiya and concealment of his former relations with the latter by means of his theory of re-animation. (l) Mahāvīra's denunciation of Gosāla who acted like a thief in pretending himself to be a Jina. (i) Destruction by Gosāla's magie power of two dis- ciples of Mahāvīra,-Savvâņubhūi and Suņakkhatta who censured Gosāla for his improper behaviour towards his former teacher. ' (j) Magic duel fought between Gosāla and Mahāvīra, which resulted in the defeat and discomfiture of the former. (k) Advantage taken by the Niggantha ascetics under Mahāvīra's instruction of this mental state of Gosāla, and conversion of many Ajvivas to the Jaina faith. (1) Gosala's shameless words and actions in the deli- rium of fever, e.g., holding a mango in his hand, drinking, singing, dancing, improperly soliciting the potter-woman Halahalā, and sprinkling himself with the cool muddy water from a potter's vessel. (m) Question of Ayampula, an Ājīviya layman, as to the nature of the Hlalla insect, and Gosala's foolish reply (made after the attendant theras had taken away the mango which he was holding in his hand): "This which you see is not a mango, but merely the skin of a mango ; you want to know what the Halla insect is like; it is like the root of the bamboo, play the lute, brother, play the lute!"

30 THE ÅJIVIKAS

(n) Development of a few new doctrines of the Ājīviyas from Gosāla's personal aets and from events at or about the time of his death, cis., (i) the doctrine of Eight Finalities (attha cara- maim); the last drink, the last song, the last dance, the last solicitation. the last tornado, the last sprinkling elephant,1 the last fight with big stones as missiles, and the last Titthankara who is Mankhaliputta himself 2; (ii) the doctrine of Four Drinkables and Four substitutes (cattāri pāņagāim; cattāri apāņagāim)3: the former inelude what is excreted by the cow, what has been soiled by the hand (e.g., the water in a potter's vessel), what is heated by the sun, and what drops from a roek ; and the latter inelude- (1) Holding a dish or a bottle or a pot or a jar which is cool or wet with water, instead of drinking from it ; (2) squeezing or pressing with one's mouth a mango or a hog-plum or a jujube fruit or a tinduka fruit when it is tender or uncooked, instead of drinking of its juice ; (3) squeezing or pressing with one's mouth kalāya or mudga or masa or simbali beans when these are tender or uncooked, instead of drinking of their juice; and (1) 'the-pure-drink' consisting in cating pure food for six months, lying successively, for two

1 Seyanaga= Sk. Secanaka, the Sprinkler. In the Nirayavaliya Sutta (Warren's ed. 17) it is related that this elephant used to carry the roval ladies of Campa to their bath and sport in the Ganges. Sre Hoernle's Appendix 1, p. 7, f. n. * Hoernle rightly points ont that the first four items refer to the last personal acts of Gosala, and that of the remaining four items the first three refer to events which happened at or about the time of Gosala's death. Appendix I, p. 7. f. n. 3 The commentary explains pānagaim by "jalavisesā vratayogyāh, i.e., kinde of water that are fit to be drunk by the asceties; and apāņagaim by "pānaka-sadriāni sitalatvena dahopasama-hetava," i.c., objects that resemble water. because, on aceount their coolness, they serve to assuage internal heat. Appendix 1. p. 8, f. n.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 31

months at a time, on the bare earth, on wooden planks and on darbha grass. (o) Gosāla's propheey that Mahāvīra, struck by his magic power, would die of typhoid fever in six months, and Mahavīra's connter prophecies that the former having been hit by his magic power, would die of the same fever in seven days, while he himself, although attacked with the same malady would live for sixteen years longer the life of a Jina. (p) Gosāla's repentanee and confession of shame, and declaration that Mahavira was the true Jina while he himself was Gosala, the son of Mankhali, a wicked man, whose body deserved to be dragged, after his death, by a rope for people to spit at, and buried with every mark of dishonour.1 (q) His death in the premises of Hālāhalā's potter- shop and a public burial of his body with all honours, according to his original instructions. (r) Synchronism of his death with the war between Kūņiya and Cedaga. (s) His rebirth as a Deva in the Aceuya world (Accue Kappe), being the reward, as some of the Jainas believe, of his repentance and self-confession, followed by a long series of rebirths and redeaths, the first of which is repre- sented by King Mahāpauma of Punda, at the foot of the Viñjhã mountains. (f) Persecution of the Niggantha Samanas by King Mahāpauma at the instigation of the Ajīviyas whose royal patron he was, and destrnction of the wicked king by the magie potency of the JJaina saint named Sumamgala. (n) Blind worship of Mankhaliputta Gosāla whom his Ajīviya followers honoured as the last Titthankara.

1 Heart of Jainism, p. 60, f, n

32 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

Those who are inclined to accept the Bhagavati account of Gosala's last days as true in the literal sense, may find their views beautifully expressed in Mrs. Stevenson's " Heart of Jainism " (p. 60), where she makes the following observation: "Now he (i.e., Gosāla) brought forward another doctrine, that of re-animation, by which he explained to Mahavīra that the old Gosāla who had been a disciple of his was dead, and that he who now animated the body of Gosāla was quite another person; this theory, however, deceived nobody and Gosāla, discredited in the eyes of the townspeople, fell lower and lower, and at last died as a fool dieth." I have been at pains to place.before the reader almost all the main facts to be gathered from the Bhagavatī account of Gosala's last days, and that with the single object of enabling him to judge for himself how brittle and insufficient are the materials with which a systematic history of the post-Makkhali period of the Ājīviya religion is to be built. And any intelligent student of history, I am confident, can easily perceive that many real facts about the Ajīviyas lie buried under the debris of myth and sectarian misrepresentation. He may miss all other points, but not one, which, I believe, is the Jaina motive to make Gosāla who is the greatest Ajīviya teacher . to appear as a mischievous mad man to posterity, to whom he bequeathed the richest treasures of his wisdom and erudition, and, above all, an invigorating message of hope through his theory of re-animation. I leave it to the future historian of the Ãjīviyas to decide how far he had merited such inhospitable and impolite treatment in the hands of the Jaina author of the Bhagavati Sutra. But I cannot help making one or two observations in passing. First, it does not surely speak well either of the Jaina author or of the Jaina order whose glory and powers the

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 33

former is so anxious to bring out in his account, that he has recorded without any apology the conduct of the Niggantha Samanas who had taken advantage of and doubly increased the mental worries and discomfiture of Gosāla by going to discuss with him some serious pro- blems of Jaina religion and theology, and that at the opportune suggestion from Mahavira himself. However, in spite of his deliberate attempt to make the best use of Gosala's words and actions in the delirium of fever, without a word of sympathy for the agony under which he suffered, he has not been able to eonceal a few out- standing facts of the latter's life. He has mentioned, for instanee, that the question which Ayampula, an Ājīviya layman, put to his dying master was about the nature of the Halla insect, just in the same way that he has related that the two ascetics, Mahāvīra and Gosāla, had separated in Siddhatthagāma on account of a doc- trinal difference which arose between them in connexion with the latter's theory of re-animation. These two points, marking out as they do the beginning and close of his philo- sophic career, go only to indicate that he was a naturalist, one whose life was spent in the study of plants and all other forms of life, and in finding out scientific explana- tions for their peculiar characteristics, habits, experiences and destinies. Secondly, I do not clearly see as to what spiritual advantage the Jaina author has sought to gain by des- cribing Gosala's fever as the dire consequence of a magie duel he had so foolishly fought with Mahavira, though not unaware of the fact that a Jaina himself was inclined to attribute the typhoid fever from which Mahāvīra himself suffered shortly afterwards to a similar cause.1

1 Hoernle's Appendix, I, p. 10: " Soon after his arrival at the Salakotthaga Ceiya near the town of Midhiyagama, Mahavīra got a severe attack of bilious fever, 5

3+ THE ĀJĪVIKAS

I cannot, indeed, suggest any other plausible explanation for some of the later accounts, whether Jaina or Buddhis- tic, which seek to claim the superiority of Mahāvīra or of the Buddha, as a teacher, by his superior and over- whelming magical powers of destruetion, than that in the absence of the master, the spirit of his teaching was entirely lost sight of by those of his followers who courted only popularity of their faith among superstitious people at large. It seems true that the visit of Mahāvīra to Sāvatthi with his disciples who resembled in many respects the Ajīviyas but who were more exalted withal in social position and more refined in manners, and whose doctrines were more rational and articulate than, although similar in many points to, the Ajīviya, proved fatal to the reputation of the Ajīviya leader and checked further progress of the Ajiviya creed in the ancient city of Savatthi which is so famous also in the history of Buddhism. It may be a fact that some of the Ajīviyas were won over to the new faith of the Jainas which was rapidly spreading its net over the Mid-Land like a spider at the eost of the mother creed. But was the victory only one-sided, I would ask, or did Mahāvīra gain some only to lose others, despite the fact that he gained far more than lost? What does the Jaina author mean when he relates that Mahavīra's disciples, Savvâņu- bhūi and Suņakkhatta, were killed by Gosāla's magical powers of destruction? I am of opinion that both Savvânubhūi and Suņakkhatta were converted to the Ajīvika faith. As to Suņakkhatta in partieular there are two versions of an important Buddhist discourse, characterised as "horror-striking " (lomahamsa),1 in both and all the people of the town thonght that Gosala's prophecy was going to be fulfilled .... This greatly tronbled the mind of one of Mahavīra's diseiples, ealled Sīha." 1 The discourse is embodied in the Mahasihanāda Sntta, Majjhima, I, pp. 68-83, and in the Lomahamsa-Jātaka (No. 94).

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 35

of which he is introduced as a Licchavi prince who severed his connexion with the Bnddhist order, and in both the versions the Buddha sets up an enquiry into the tenets of Ajīvika religion, which is a circumstantial evidence proving that Sunakkhatta had something to do and was in some way connected with the Ajīvikas at some later period of his life. All the stories about him, whether older or later, emphasize certain facts about his religious views and outlook which manifestly show that he was just the sort of man who attached greater spiritual value to outward asceticism than to the moral behaviour of a recluse, and whose standard of judgment of a teacher's greatness consisted in mystical faculties and magic rather than in self-culture and rationality. He had joined the Buddhist Order apparently in the hope of finding in the great Buddha and his religion of the Middle Path all that he wanted to get, and when disappointed, he left it to join with a Korakhattiya in repudiating the Buddha in public as a theorist withont higher intellectual perception and superhuman faculties.1 According to Garuda Gosvāmin's Amāvatura, he next attached himself to a Jaina recluse named Kaļāra- matthuka, and again returned to the Buddha only to go back again to a self-conceited Jaina named Pāțika- putta. It was while the Buddha was staying in the Pāțikârāma, near Vesāli, that he gave his famous ' horror- striking' discourse by dwelling on the religious views of Suņakkhatta which were consonant with the Ajīvika

1 " N'atthi Samaņassa Gotamassa nttarimanussaadhammo alamariyañāņadassana- viseso, takkapariyâhatani samaņo Gotamo dhammam deseti." The Lomahanısa Jātaka relates that Snnakkhatta reverted to a lay life through the influence of Kora the Kşatriya abont the time when this latter had been reborn as the offspring of Kālakañjaka Asura. The Mahasīhanada Sutta does not mention Kora Khattiya. The story of Snnakkhatta in the Singhalese Amavatnra seems to have been based npon the Patika-Sutta of the Dīgha Nikaya, Vol. III. The older version of the story is to be diseussed in Part 11, Chap. 1.

36 THE AJIVIKAS

faith and discipline. The Mahasīhanada Sutta, which lays the seene in a forest-grove, in the western suburh of Vesāli, embodies a more detailed analysis and elaborate discussion of the principles and practiees of the Ajīvikas, and this older aecount in the Majjhima confirms, as will be shown anon, the Jaina account in the Bhagavatī in many important phases of jīvikism as it developed after the Nirvana of Gosala. Thus with the aid of contem- porary and subsequent accounts from the Buddhists I can suggest that the trne meaning of the Jaina state- ment about the destruction of Suņakkhatta1 by Gosāla's magical powers is that he passed many a time from one order to another, and that the last order which he joined and the last faith in which he died was the Ajīviya. Next as to Mahavīra's prophecy that Gosala having been hit by his magic power must die of bilious (typhoid) fever in seven days, I doubt if it can be viewed as sober history. This prophecy of his is in conflict with his statement that eight new praetices of the Ajīviyas emerged from Gosala's personal acts. Considering that the first seven practices-drinking what is exereted by the cow, what has been soiled by the hand, ete., are traceable in his aets in the delirium of fever, a presump- tion is apt to arise that the cighth practice, called the Pure Drink, also arose from his personal example, and as we know, to practise this hard penance of suicidal starvation, the Ajivivas had to lie down for six months, lying successively for two months at a time on the bare earth, on wooden planks and on darbha grass. If the Ājīviyas observed this practice in blind imitation of their master, as I believe they did, Mahavīra's prophecy can be reconciled with his statement about Gosāla's

1 The story of Sunakkhatta in the Dhammapada commentary and the Amāvatura goes on to relate that his dead hody was dragged by a rope to the charnel field (āmaka-susāna).

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 37

death only by the supposition that he did not actually die in seven days, but survived the attack of fever for a period of six months, during which he practised the penance of Pure Drink in the manner above described, and attained after his death to the immutable world (Accue Kappe). The new Ajīviya doctrine of eight finalities preserves the memory of a war between Kūniya and Cedaga, and these reminiscences, combined with Mahavīra's second prophecy that Gosla would predeccase him by sixteen years, can serve to furnish a clue to the date of Gosāla's death, being synchronous with some natural and political events such as tornado and war, which left its influence on Ájīviya religion. An account of this war is em- bodied in the Nirayāvaliya sutta1, but it would be an unpardonable digression here to discuss the complicated question of date. It can nevertheless be imagined that the strange coincidence of Gosala's death with tornado and war made such a deep impression on the Ajīviyas as to lead them to associate these events in their memory, to look upon them as the work of some mysterious spiritual agencies and turn their coincidence into a doctrine: the last drink, the last song, the last dance, the last solicitation, the last tornado, the last sprinkling elephant, the last fight with big stones as missiles, and the last titthankara who is Mankhaliputta himself.2 According to the Bhagavati account Savatthi was the main centre of the Ajiviya activity during the leadership of Gosāla and subsequently, and this is confirmed by a few passages of the Vinaya Pitaka pointing to Sāvatthi as the place where a naked ascetic was invariahly

1 Warren's edition, p. 17, foll. 2 Bhagavatī, XV. 1. 1254: carime pāne, carime cāre, carime natțe, carime amıjalikamme, carime pokkhalassa samvattae mahāmehe, carime seyaņae gardbahatthi, carime mahasilakamtae ... carime titthamkare.

38 THE AJIVIKAS

sidered to be an Ijīvika. Professor D. R. Bhandarkar draws attention' to an interesting episode in the Mahā- vagga recording two instances, where a maid in the service of lady Visākhā mistook the Buddhist bhikkhus for the Tjīvikas when she saw them "with their robes thrown off, letting themselves be rained down upon "2 and the second time, when the bikkhus entered, into their respective chambers, taking off their robes after cooling their limbs and being refreshed in body." The Ajīviya lay-disciples mentioned in the Uvāsagadasāo, the Bhagavatī sūtra and in the Dhammapada commentary were all either citizens of Savatthi or residents of some outlying distriets and suburbs of Savatthi, and they are classed as rich potters and bankers as will appear from the following list :- (1) Kuņdakoliya, resident of Sahassambavana near Kampillapura in the dominion of King Jiya- sattū, alias Pasenādi Kosala. He married lady Pusa and is said to have possessed "a treasure of six kror measures of gold deposited in a safe place, a capital of six kror measures of gold, put out on interest, a well-stocked estate of the value of six kror measures of gold and six herds, cach herd consisting of ten thousand heads of cattle." He had a seal inscribed with his name (nāma-mudda) and is addressed as the lay-disciple of the Samana and beloved of the gods.5 Subsequently he is said to have become a Jaina. (2) Saddālaputta, a rich potter of Polāsapura, a town near Sahassambavana in the dominion of

1 Ind. Ant., 1912, Vol. XLI, p. 288. " Mahavagga, VIII, 15.3. Vinaya Texts, S. B. E., Part 11, p. 217. 3 Mahivagga, VIII, 15.4. Vinaya Texts, op. cit. p. 218, ' Hoernle's edition and translation of the Uvasaga Dasão, VI, 163. Ibid, Vl. 166: " Ham bho Kuņdakoliya samaņôvāsayā . devâņuppivā."

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 39

King Jiyasattu. He married Aggimitta and vied with Kuņdakoliya in opulence.' He ran 500 potteries where a large number of employees received food in lieu of wages, day by day, prepared a large number of bowls, pots, pans, pitchers and jars of six different sizes,2 and used to carry on a trade on the king's high- road with that large number of bowls and jars of various sizes.3 He, too, is said to have become a Jaina later on. (3) Hālāhalā, a potter-woman in whose premises in Savatthi Mankhaliputta found shelter and lived and died. (4) Ayampula, a citizen of Sāvatthi. (5) Migara,4 a banker of Savatthi, who possessed 40 Kror measures of gold (eattālisakoțiyo mahāsetthi). His son Puņņavaddhana married the Buddhist lady Visākhā, daughter of Dhanañjaya, a banker of Magadha, naturalised subsequently in Kosala. The banker Migāra got rid of his Ajīvika creed and embraced the Buddhist faith through the instrumentality of his daughter-in-law. Hence the standing epithet Migaramata, the mother of Migara, applied to the name of Visākhā. There are a few Buddhist discourses which bear out the fact that the Ajīvika propaganda work was not confined to Kosala, but ranged over a wider area extending as far west as Avanti, and as far east as the frontier district of Bengal (Vangantajanapada). For instance, in a passage of the Majjhima Nikāya, a Brahman wanderer tells the Buddha that Anga and Magadha were seething with

1 Ibid, VIJ. 182. 2.3 Uvāsaga Dasāo, VII. 183. + Dhammapada Commentary, p. 384, foll,

40 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

speculative ferment stirred up by the six titthankaras of whom Makkhali Gosala was one1 ; and in another passage Sariputta informs Moggallāna that he met an Ājīvika named Panduputta, the son of a eoaeh-repairer, near Rājagaha.2 The story of Upaka, of which there are several versions in the Buddhist literature,3 relates that the Buddha had met the Ajivika en route to Benares from Gaya, shortly after his enlightenment. According to a later version of the same story in the Snttanipāta-commentary, Upaka having parted company with the Buddha proceeded as far east as the frontier district of Bengal where he was entertained by a fowler with meat broth. He fell in love with Capa, the fowler's daughter, and when their love affair was diselosed she was given him in marriage. He beeame sick of household life after Capa had given birth to a son and went back to the Buddha whom he came to look upon as ananta-jina, the peerless Master. The District where he had so long lived as householder was situated outside the Middle Country, as may- be inferred from the expression that "he proeeeded towards the Majjhimadesa."+ Thus, the Buddhist evidences can be brought to bear upon the Bhagavati account whieh speaks of Rāyagiha, Uddaņdapura, Campā, Vāņārasi, Ālabhiyā, Vesali and Sāvatthi as the several successive centres of the Ajīviya activity. A number of Gosala's disciples survived him and amongst them may be included the Disācaras, and Suņakkhatta and others. The Disacaras formed a group of six wandering mendicants before their conversion to the Ajīviya religion, and they are named Sāņa, Kalanda,

"ajjhima-Nikāya, Il, p. 2. 2 Ibid, I, pp. 31-32. 3 Ibid, 1, p. 170, foll .; Therigāthā ; Paramattha-jotikā, JI, Vol. 7, pp. 258-260. + Paramatthajotikā, II, Vol. I, p. 260: Majjhima desâbhimukho pakkami. The boundaries of the Middle Conntry are discussed by Prof. Bhandarkar with his characteristie thoroughness in his Carmichael Lectures, Lec. 1I, p. 42, foll,

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 41

Kaņiyāra, Attheda, Aggivesāyaņa, and Ajjaņa Gomāyu- putta.1 Of them the last, i.e., Ajjaņa Gomāyuputta seems to have been the same person as the Ajīvika whom the Buddhist Thera Sariputta met outside Rajagaha, and who is named Panduputta purāņayānakāraputta in the Majjhima (I. p. 31)-Paņdu's son, i.e., Ajjuna, the son of a repairer of old carts. The Disacaras met Gosāla in the 24th year of his mendicancy. The Bhagavatī account keeps us in the dark as to who they were before their interview with Gosala. It represents them as if they had belonged to a separate school of thought and religious order, the past traditions (puvvas) whereof they collected and arranged into a canon consisting of eight Mahanimittas and two Maggas, which ultimately became the sacred literature of the Ajīviyas.2 The account goes so far as to indicate that this literature sprang out of the extracts made by the Disacaras according to their own ideas from the Puvas, and that Gosāla derived the six characteristic features of the organic world therefrom. It seems prim facie impossible that the six wanderers should have paid a visit to Gosala with a literature of their own and that this literature should have been accepted by Gosāla and his disciples as canonical. The better interpretation would seem to be that the disciples of Gosala who survived him assembled to collect and systematise the teachings of their master and the tradi- tions of their order after Gosala's death, and probably they formed a council of six for the purpose, a procedure followed later in principle by the Jainas and Buddhists after the death of their masters. The Bhagavati Sūtra does not explain what its author understood by the Puvvas wherein the eight

1 Some texts read the names as Sāņa, Kaņamda, Kaņiyāra, Acchida, Aggivesāyaņa and Ajjuya Gomāyuputta. ' Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, Appendix 1I, p. 249. 6

42 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

Mahanimittas were contained, nor does it state what his idea was of the contents of the Ajīviya canon. The commentator says that the Maggas consisted of two treatises on music: gitamārga-nrityamārga-lakșaņam, which is hardly correct. It appears from the Bhadrabāhu inscription at Śravaņa Belgola 1 that the eight Mahanimittas formed part of the original Jaina canon, although no trace of them, as noticed by Prof. Leumann, can be found in the existing one.2 There seems to be much truth in Leumann's surmise; at any rate, the traditional connexion of the Mahanimittas and Maggas with the Puvvas can be rendered clear by the history of the Jaina canon. According to the Jaina tradition, whether Svetâmbara or Digambara, "besides the Angas, there existed other and probably older works, called Puvvas, of which there were originally fourteen."3 The Śvetâmbara tradition says that the fourteen Pūrvas were incorporated in the twelfth Anga, the Dristivāda, which was lost in the 10th century after Mahavīra's death. This tradition is in conflict with the Jaina inter- pretation of the word Puvva, according to which Mahāvīra himself taught the Puvvas to his disciples called the Ganadharas and the latter composed afterwards the Angas. That there is some truth in this traditional interpretation none can deny.+ The substance of Prof. Jacobi's views on this point is that the fourteen Puvvas or oldest sacred books of the Jainas were superseded by a new canon, for the very name Puvva means "former," i.e., the earlier composition. The most natural interpretation of the tradition that the Angas and the Puvvas existed side by

1 Bhadra Bāhu and Śravaņa Belgoļā by Lewis Rice, Iņd. Ant., Vol. III, p. 153, Aştângamahanimittam=atthamgantha Mahānimittam of the Bhagavatī Sūtra. 2 Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, Appendix II, p. 249, f. n. 1. 3 Jacobi's Jaina-sūtras, Part 1, Introd., p. xliv. * Weber, Indische Studien, xvi, p. 353,

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 43

side up till the council of Pataliputra, which was held in the 4th century B.C., is that the first eleven Angas did not derive their authority from the Puvvas, and were in a sense later innovations. As to the tradition that the 14 Parvas were incorpo- rated in the Twelfth Anga, the Dristicada, Prof. Jacobi justifies it by the contents of the Anga itself. The Dristivāda, as its name implies, dealt chiefly with the dristis or philosophical views of the Jainas and other schools. "It may be thence inferred that the pūrvas related controversies held between Mahavīra and rival teachers. The title pravada which is added to the name of each purca, seems to affirm this view." The Jaina scholars headed by Jacobi, Weber and others tend to hold that the purvas represented the older Jaina doctrines in their traditional form which were later abridged, systema- tized and partly superseded by the Angas.1 The same process of abridgement, systematisation, and partial supplementation seems to have taken place in the growth of the Ajivika canon. The eight Mahā- nimittas did not surely exhaust the puvvas when it is ex- pressly stated that they were only contained in them, and consisted of extracts made thereof by the Disacaras accord- ing to their own ideas. Some idea of the contents of the Mahanimittas can be formed from the Bhadrabāhu inscription referred to above and quoted below :- "Bhadrabāhu-svāminā Ujjayinyām astânga-mahāni- mitta-tatvajñena traikālya-darsinā nimittena dvādasa sam- vatasara-kāla vaișamyam upalabhya." The extract may be rendered as follows :- "By Bhadrabāhu-svāmin, who possesses the knowledge of the Eight Mahanimittas, the seer of the past, present and future, was foretold by the study of signs a dire

3 Hoernle's Introduction to his translation of the Uvasaga Dasão, p. x. See other references mentioned by him in a footnote.

44 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

calamity in Ujjayini, lasting for a period of twelve years. It is clear from this that the Eight Mahānimittas con- sisted ehiefly of astrologieal and astronomical works. It is doubtful if the Maggas were treatises on music, as the JJaina commentator suggests. These dealt perhaps with the rules of the Ajīviya community. It is no wonder that these were later additions to the Ajīvika canon, although it is difficult to say when exactly these additions were made. The puvvas from which the .abstracts on astrological and astronomical matters were derived eon- tained perhaps, like the Puvvas of the Jainas, the philo- sophical views and eontroversies besides the rules of the Ājīviya order. The separation of the Mahanimittas from the general body of Ajīviya tradition was coeval probably with a change whieh came about in the life of the Ajīviyas after their master's death. The change is nothing else, as will be pointed out hereafter, than that the Ājīviyas departing from the line of strict religious discipline and purpose of their Masters inclined more and more to make astrology and divination their profession. The literary traditions of the Ajīviyas, like those of many other schools of thought, have been lost perhaps for ever, and no one knows where to seek for them or what fruitful results they will yield when discovered. At the present state of our knowledge, I can only say that the Ajīviyas, like the Jainas and the Buddhists, had a literature of their own, and it is painful to think that it should have been irrevocably lost. From the evidence of the Bhadrabahu inscription of Śravaņa Belgoļā the historian is tempted to believe that it is not lost absolutely, but that it has survived in some form or other in the existing literature of the Jainas, the Buddhists and the Brahmans, and chiefly in that of the Jainas. A few stereotyped fragments that have survived in the Jaina and Buddhist literatures seem to preserve

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 45

certain turns of expressions which, meagre though they are, bear evidence to the fact that the Ajīvikas had developed a literary medium or vehicle of expression and scientific nomenclature of their own, closely allied to the Dialect on one side, and to Ardhamagadhi on the other, distant from Pali and still more distant from Sanskrit. It is difficult, as in the case of Ardha- māgadhi and Pali, to point out any local dialeet on which the Ajivika language was based. Considering that Savatthi was the main centre of their religious propaganda during the leadership of Gosāla and subse- quently, one may be tempted to hold that it was derived mainly from the dialect of Kosala, while its scientific nomenclature was partly coined and partly derived from the Brahmanical literature then extant. But the objec- tion will arise that if their language was of a local origin, how could it be spoken and well understood over the whole of the Middle Country, or why should it be different, however slightly, from Ardhamagadhi and Pāli, although Savatthi was as much the centre of the Ājīvikas as that of the Jainas and Buddhists? I am far from saying that their language was entirely free from all local influences, but I must say that in the study of the growth of literary languages in the sixth eentury B.C., no less than in that of the rise of different political powers and religious orders, the historian and the philologist will do well to bear in mind that the tribal, caste and communal factors were far more potent and operative than local. To take an illustration : supposing that the languages of the Ajivika canon and Buddhist Pitaka had developed side by side in Kosala, where the local influences were theoretically the same, the differences between them in matters of phonetics, syntax and affinity with Sanskrit can be best accounted for not so much by a grand theory of provincial peculiarities

46 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

as by that of tribal, caste and communal differentiations, conscious or unconscious. The communal differentiation is conscious, while the tribal and caste differentiations are generally unconscious, and conscious only where a member of a tribe or caste makes himself conspieuous to his fellows by his imitation of the diction and accent of some other tribe or caste. The tribal or race influence is pirtly local in so far as a place is inhabited by a tribe or a race. Proceeding on these lines, the greater refinement of Pali and its closer aflinity with Sanskrit can be explained by the fact that it had originated with a highly cultured member of an aristocratie clan, and was adapted to the languages of the nobility and learned Brahmans, while the Ajivika language having originated with a person of lower social position, and having been adapted to the dialects of the Vaiśyas, e.g., the bankers, the potters and the coach-builders, naturally lacked gram- matical precision, the purity of diction, and refinement in tone This is confirmed by the fact that wherever in the Nikāyas we come across homely dialogues and folk-tales, similes and maxims, it is found that the language differs invariably from the standard Pali of the Buddhist Theras and Theris, and approximates more or less to the Dialect, i.e., to the language of the Middle Country with its local, tribal and caste variations. A fuller discussion of this intricate linguistic problem is reserved for Part II. Here I must remain content with citing a few instances in order to illustrate the nature of the Ijīvika language under notice. 1. (a) The doetrine of Gosāla is reproduced in Ardhamāgadhi : "Gosālassa Mankhaliputtassa dhammapaņ- ņatti: n'atthi utthāņe i vā kamme i vā bale i vā vīrie i vā purisaparakkame i vā- niyayā sabbabhāvā" (Uvāsaga Dasāo, VI, 166).

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 47

(7) The same is reproduced in Pali : "N'atthi attakāre n'atthi parakāre n'atthi purisakāre, n'atthi balam n'atthi vīriyam n'atthi purisa-thāmo n'atthi purisa- parakkamo. Sabbe sattā sabbe pāņā sabbe bhūtā sabbe jīvā avasā abalā avīriyā niyati-sangati-bhāva-pariņatā" (Dīgha., I, p. 63). (c) The same abridged and more adapted to Pāli reads : "N'atthi balam n'atthi vīriyan n'atthi purisatthāmo n'atthi purisaparakkamo, sabbe sattā .. ........ .abalā avīrivā niyati- sańgati-bhāva pariņatā (Majjhima, I, p. 407). 2. (a) Caurâsīti mahākappasayasahassāini, satta- divve, satta samjūhe, satta saņnigabbhe, satta pautțaparihāre, pañca kammanisaya- sahassaim satthim ca sahassāni cha ca satiņņiya kammamse aņnpuvveņamı kha- vaittā tau pacchā sijjhanti bujjhanti jāva antam karenti "1 (Bhagavatī, XV. 1.). (b) "Cuddasa kho pan' imāni yoni-pamukha-sata- sahassāni satțhiñ ca satāni cha ca satāni, pañca ca kammāni tīņi ca kammāni kamme ca addha-kamme ca, dvatthi-patipadā ...... satta saññigabbhā satta asaññigabbhā, satta nigaņthigabbhā, satta devā satta mānusā, satta pesācā,? satta supinā, satta snpina-satāni, cullâsīti

1 In some edition the text reads: sijjhanti bnjjhanti muccamti parinivvaimti sabla dukkhanam amntam karimsn vā karimti vã karissamti vā. The phrase jāva aintam karenti frequently occurs in the Bhagavati, XV. 1. 2 The variant is pisāca. This reading is adopted by the commentator.

48 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

mahā-kappuno 1 satasahassāni yāni bāle ca paņdite ca sandhāvitvā samsaritvā dukkhass' antam karissanti" (Dīgha, I, p. 5-4). 3. (a) "Se-jje ime gām'-āgāra jāva saņņivesesu Ājīviyā bhavanti, tam jahā : du-gharânta- riyā ti-gharântariyā satta-gharântariyā up- palaveņtiyā ghara-samudāņiyā vijjuyân- tariyā uttiya-samaņā" (Aupapātika Sūtra, Sec. 120). () "Acelakā muttâcārā hatthâpalekhanā na ehibhadantika na titthabhadantikā na abhihatam na uddissakatam na niman- taņam sādiyanti, . Te ekāgārikā va honti ekalopikā, dvâgārikā va honti dvâlopikā, sattâgarikā va honti sattâlo- pikā .. " (Majjhima, I, p. 235). The reader may notice that in the instances cited above the language is not that of the Ajīvikas, certain views and rules of theirs being reproduced in highly crystallised and distorted forms by the Jainas and Buddhists in their own languages, i.e., in Ardhamāgadhi and Pāli res- pectively. In so doing, they have retained just a few turns of expressions and grammatical forms which appear to stand nearer to Ardhamāgadhi or Jaina Prākrit. For instance, in the Jaina extract 1(a), the nominative singu- lars, whether masculine or neuter, have for their case- ending e, while in Pali declension the case-ending in similar cases is o for masculine stems and am for neuter. The Jaina extract reads : "n' atthi utthāne i vā purisaparakkame i vā." The Buddhist extract from the Dīgha, catalogued as 1(b), contains similar grammatical forms in "n'atthi atta-kāre n'atthi para-kāre n'atthi

1 The reading Mahākappuno is accepted in the commentary.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 49

purisakāre," while these expressions are altogether omitted in the extract from the Majjhima, marked 1(c), where the Ajīvika language is more adapted to Pāli. The contrast in view can at onee be brought ont by eom- parison of 1(a) and 1(c). 1(a): n'atthi bale i vā vīriye i vā purisa-parak- kame i vā. 1(c): n'atthi balam n'atthi vīriyam n'atthi purisa- thmo n'atthi purisa-parakkamo. It may be inferred from this that the Ājīvikas did not draw any distinction in their declension between masculine and neuter stems ending in a, in so far as the nominative singular is concerned. Mahākappuno occurs in 2() as a genitive singular of mahkappa, whereas the genitive plural mahakappanam would have fitted more the context, if the language had been Pali. Moreover, the genitive singular of mahākappa is always mahākappassa in Pāli. The extract 2(b) also contains an Ajīvika word supina, the meaning of which is confounded by the Buddhist commentator with that of the Pali word supina. "Satta supinā, satta supina-satāni." Professor Rhys Davids following the authority of Buddhaghosa's commentary, renders these expressions by "seven principal and seven hundred minor sorts of dreams."1 Supina stands in Pāli for dream, and Buddhaghosa naturally explains it: "supi- nâti mahāsupinā, supinasatānîti khuddaka supina-satāni."2 but as a matter of fact, the word is Ajīvika and denotes bird, like its analogous forms suviņa in Ardhamāgadhi, supaņņa or suvaņņu in Pāli and suparņa in Sanskrit. These forms-supina, suvina, snpanna, and suparna, when put side by side, can well indieate the relative position of the Ājīvika language, Ardhamāgadhi, Pāli and Sanskrit.

1 Dial, B. 1I, p. 72. 3 Snmańgala-vilāsinī, I, p. 164. 7

50 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

The Buddhist story of Upaka preserves an Ājīvika expression "huveyya pâvuso "1 with its variants "hupeyya pâvuso,"2 "hupeyya āvuso,"3 which is Sanskritised in the Lalita Vistara as "tad bhavisyasi Gautama," and may be rendered "perhaps it may be so, my good friend !"5 Huveyya or hupeyya which is an optative form of the verbal root ybhu is not a recognised Pali word, the usual Pali form of the verb being bhaveyya. It appears more- over from the variants mentioned above that the sounds p and v were interchangeable in the Ajīvika language. Furthermore, in a later version of the same story,6 the Buddhist commentator displays humour by repro- ducing Upaka's actual words: "sace Cavam labhāmi, jīvāmi; no ce, marāmîti," i.e., "If I gain Cāvā, I will live; if not, I will die." The Ceylonese edition of Bud- dhaghosa's Papañca Sūdani (p. 38S) supplies a variant of the above reading, which is " Chavam labhami, jīvāmi; no ce, marāmîti."7 Here the name Cāvā or Chava whereby Upaka refers to the fowler's daughter with whom he fell in love is not Pali, the usual Pali form of the name being Capa.8 It also may be noted that the use of the present tense marami instead of the future form marissāmi is unidiomatic in Pali. The idio- matic use of the verb can be best illustrated by these two sentences: "Yena tena upāyena gaņha, sace na labhissāmi marissāmîti ”9; "marissāmi no gamissami n'atthi bāle sahāyatā. "10 That the general tendency of

1 Majjhima, I, p. 171; Paramattha-jotikā, II, Vol. I, p. 258. 2.3 Mahāvagga, Vol. 1, p. 8. + Lefmann's Lalita-vistara, p. 406. 5 Papañca-Sūdani, Ceylonese edition, p. 388: evam pi nāma bhaveyya. 6 Paramāttha-jotikā, II, Vol. I. p. 258. ' Cf. Paramattha-jotika, II, Vol. I, p. 259. "Sace chāvam labhāmi, jīvāmi, no cemarãmîti." 8 Paramattha-jotikā, 1I, Vol. I, p. 258. 9 Anderson's Pali Reader, p. 1. 10 Dhammapada-commentary, I, p. 17.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 51

the Pali idiom is to use the future tense in such cases is evident also from the extraets 2(a) and 2(0). Instead of "jāva antam karemti " in the Jaina extract 2(a) we meet with " dukkhass' antam karissanti" in the Buddhist extract 2(b). I need not multiply instances here. The cases already cited inelude instances where the masculine and neuter stems ending in a are not distinguished in declension in so far as the nominative singular is con- cerned, and where the numbers and tenses are not properly differentiated. Are these not sufficient to justify the surmise that the Ajīvika language may be judged from its crude grammatical forms as standing nearest to the Dialect and elosely allied to Ardhamāgadhi? With regard to two new Ajiviya doetrines which are said to have been formulated on the basis of Gosāla's personal aets and ineidents, I find substantial agreement between the Jaina and Buddhist accounts. The doctrines as enumerated in the Bhagavatī Sūtra comprise (1) that of eight Finalities, and (2) that of four Drinkables and four Substitutes. These are interdependent as the last drink which is ineluded in the former seems to have afforded a basis for the latter. It is not easy to understand the real signification of the doctrine of eight Finalities: the last drink, the last song, the last dance, the last solicita- tion, the last tornado, the last sprinkling elephant, the last fight with big stones as missiles, and the last Titthan- kara who is Mankhaliputta himself. Of these, the first four items refer, as pointed out by Dr. Hoernle, to Gosala's delirious aets, and of the remaining four, the first three items refer to events that happened at or about the time of Gosala's death. The conjunction or coincid- ence of the death of Gosala, the last Ajīviya Titthankara, with tornado and war was primâ fácie turned into a theological doctrine of which the meaning is obscure. The doctrine finds no mention in the Buddhist litcrature,

52 THE ÀJĪVIKAS

nor is any explanation of it given in the Bhagavatī Sūtra. But the last item whieh relates to the Ājīviya attitude towards Gosala may furnish a clue to its meaning ; it goes to show that Gosāla came to be regarded as the last Titthankara of the Ajīviyas. This is eorroborated by the evidence of the Buddhist texts which state that the Ājīvikas recognised only three persons as their leaders or peerless masters (anantajinas) of whom Makkhali was the last. In a Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya the Brahman wanderer Sandaka says, "The Ajīvikas act like sons of those whose sons are dead. They exalt them- selves and disparage others, and recognise three only as their leaders, vis., Nanda Vaccha, Kisa Samkicca, and Makkhali Gosāla."1 It appears from the Anguttara explanation of Gosala's doctrine of six abhijatis, wrongly ascribed to Pūraņa Kassapa, that the Ājīvikas placed their three leaders in the supremely white class, while they placed themselves in just the white class and their lay disciples in the yellow. The Jaina expression "last Titthankara " also implies that the Ajīviyas recognised more titthankaras than one. It is important to note that Gosāla came to be honoured as the last Ājīvika titthan- kara in the life-time of the Buddha. This enables us to surmise that he predeceased the Buddha, although it is difficult to say by how many years. Seeing that the jīvikas looked back to Gosāla after his death as their last Titthankara or peerless master, one can suggest the following as the most natural and probable interpretation of the doctrine of eight Finalities: the synchronism of Gosala's death with such natural and political events as tornado and war was quite providential, and that it is to be regarded as a divine testimony of Gosala being the last titthankara, whose death was 1 Majjhima, 1. p. 524 : Ājīvikā puttamatāya puttā, attānañceva ukkamseti paramı vambhenti, tayo cêva niyyataro pañnapenti, seyyathîdam Nandam Vaccham, Kisam Samkiccam, Makkhalim Gosalām.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 53

rendered doubly significant in human history by its coin- cidence with many other tragic and fateful occurrences. It seems to me that the practices of four Drinkables and four Substitutes were all connected with the hard penance of suicidal starvation to which the Ājīviyas attached a peculiar religious sanctity and spiritual value, and that these appertained to three successive stages of religious suicide (marana indiya) as the Jainas call it. In the first stage, the dying Ajīviya saint was permitted to drink something, e.g., what is excreted by the cow, what has been soiled by the hand, what is heated by the sun, and what drops from a rock ; in the second stage, he was permitted not to drink anything but to use some substi- tutes, e.g., to hold in his hand a dish or a bottle or a pot or a jar which is cool or wet with water, instead of drink- ing from it; to squeeze or press with his mouth a mango or a hog-plum or a jujube fruit or a tinduka fruit when it is tender or uncooked, instead of drinking of its juice; or to squeeze or press with his mouth kalāya or mudga or masa or simbali beans when they are tender or uncooked, instead of drinking of their juice ; while in the third or last stage, he had to forego even that. In practising the penance of Pure Drink the Ajīviya had to lie down for six months, lying successively for two months at a time on the bare earth, on wooden planks and on darbha grass. This indicates that the longest period allotted for the penance was six months, each stage of it having been gone through in two months, and therein lay the novelty of the Ajīviya method of attaining salvation by means of religious suicide. This new method of death by starvation seems to have been similar to the ' thrice- threefold way' (tidhā tidhā) introduced by Nāyaputta, i.e., Mahavīra,1 as an improvement on the older method

1 Āyārarga Sutta, I, 7.8.12: Ayam se avare dhamme Nāyaputtena sāhie, āyavajjam padīyāram vijahejjā tidhā tidhā

54 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

adopted apparently by the followers of Pārsva, e.g., by Mahavīra's parents.' The underlying motives of this barbarous practice, as described in the Ayāramga Sutta,2 are the following : 1. Riddance from kamma. 2. Endurance (titikkhā). 3. Sanctity of animal life. 4. Freedom from attachment. 5. Self-control. 6. Attainment of Nirvāņa.3 The grand moral of the doctrine involved is : " Jīviyam nâbhikamkhejjā maraņam no vi patthae, duhato vi na sajjejjā jīvite maraņe tahā." i.e., "He should not long for life, nor wish for death; he should yearn after neither, life or death." It appears from Buddha's representation of the Ājīvika religion in his Lomahamsa Discourse5 that the Ajīvikas followed the same elaborate method for the attainment of the truth as for the attainment of the Accuta world. The Ajīvika religion is described there as "the higher life in its four forms" (caturangasamannāgatam brahmacariyam)6 and its fundamental principles are summed up in the Mahāsihanāda Sutta7 by these two expressions : purifica- tion by food (āhārena snddhi) and purification by trans- migration (samsarena suddhi). The four-fold brahma- cariya consisted of- 1. Tapassita-asceticism.8 2. Lūkhacariyā-austerity ; 1 Ibid, II, 15.16. 2 Ibid, II, 7.8; II. 15.16. 3 Lit. paramā titikkhā, ibid, I. 7.8.25. Cf. Dhammapada, verse 184: titikkhā Nibbānam paramam. * Jacobi's Jaina Sūtras, part I. p. 75. 5 The Lomahamsa Discourse in the Jātaka (Jātaka No. 94). Majjhima, I. p. 77; Jātaka, I. p. 391. 7 Ibid, 1. pp. 80-82. 8 Ibid, I. p. 77; Jātaka, 1. p. 390.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 55

3. Jegucchita-comfort-loathing, and 4. Pavivittatā-solitude. Of these, the first point, i.e., Tapassita, exhausts the description of the rules of the Ājīvika order as met with in the Mahāsaccaka1 and a number of other suttas.2 It seems to me that the fourfold brahmacariya was tacitly implied in Tapassita, and was indeed the outcome of a further analysis of the older body of rules. According to the teaching of the caturańga brahmacaryya, the Ājīvika had to be an ascetic, the chief of ascetics; ugly in his habits beyond all others; comfort-loathing sur- passing all others; and lonely with unsurpassed passion. for solitude. As an ascetic (tapassitāya), he had to go naked, to be of loose habits, etc .; as ugly in his habits (lūkhasmim) he had to allow his body to be covered with a coating of dust accumulating for many years without thinking yet of rubbing it off by his own hand, or having it rubbed off by the hand of others ; as comfort-loathing (jegucchismim), he had to move about being mindful so as to bestow his love on a drop of water, and careful not to hurt small crea- tures ; and as solitary recluse (pavivittasmim), he had to flce like a deer from the face of men. The great moral involved in this mode of holy life is :- " So tatto, 3 so sīto, 4 eko bhimsanake vane, naggo na câggim āsīno, esanāpasuto munîti"5 i.e., " Bescorched, befrozen, lone in the fearsome woods, Naked, no fire beside, all afire within, The hermit is bent on seeking the truth."6 As regards his food, the Ājīvika had to live on jujube fruits, and on muggas, tilas and tandulas, whole

' Majjhima, I. p. 238; cf. p. 77. 2 Anguttara, Part I,p. 295. 3 Cf. variant Sutatto, Majjhima, p. 536. + Cf. variant so sīno, ibid, I,p. 536. 5 Majjhima, I,p. 79; Jātaka, I,p. 390. 8 Cf. Jātaka translation, I,p. 230; Dial. B. II. p. 208.

56 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

or powdered. On this point the account of the Loma- hamsa Jātaka differs from that of the Mahāsīhanāda Sutta just described. The former describes the Ajīvika as the ascetic " unclothed and covered with dust, solitary and lonely, fleeing like a deer from the face of men, whose food was small fish, cowdung, and other refuse." 1 It has been shown that Rayagiha, Uddandapura, Campā, Vāņārasi Ālabhiyā, Vesāli and Sāvatthi were the successive and principl centres of Ājīvika activity up till the Jinahood of Gosāla. These names indicate that Ājīvikism which was at first a local movement of Rāyagiha spread within a century or more over the Middle Country, and that the progress of this movement proceeded along two paths, one leading to Campā as the most easterly point, and the other to Savatthi as the extreme western limit. At this various centres the Ājīvikas had to encounter two formidable enemies. the Jaina and the Buddhist, besides the Brahman and the Kumāraputta,2 their common enemies. It appears from Gosāla's division of time that the Ajīvika movement was confined even under his leadership, within the land of the seven rivers (satta sarā), or more accurately, to the Gangetic valley.3 The scenes of the early years of Gosala's career as a mendicant are laid round Rāyagiha and Paņiyabhūmi. The latter was probably the farthest point in the South- east which lay outside the territorial division of the

2 Jātaka, I, p. 390; Ājīvikapabbajjam pabbajitvā acelako ahosi rajojalliko, pavivitto ahosi ekavihārī, manusse disvā migo vişa palāyi, mahāvikatabhojano ahosi macchagomayâdīni paribhuñji. 2 Parśva's followers were called Kumārasamaņas. (Uttarâdhyayana, lecture 23) or Niggantha samaņas, Knmārapnttas (Sūyagadamga II. 7. 6). 3 Satta sarã are, according to Buddhaghosa's commentary, seven great lakes, riz., Kaņņamuņda, Rathakāra, Anotatta, Sīhappapāta, Tiyaggala, Mucalinda, Knņāladaha (Snmangalavilāsini I. p. 164). This does not seem to be correet, In the Bhagavati Sutra we meet with the names of seven rivers riz., Ganga, Sadinagangā, Madngangā Lohiyaganga, Avatīganga, and Paramâvatīgangã (Rockhill's Life of the Bnddha p. 253).

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 57 Middle Country. Puņiyabhūmi seems to have been a river-port in Western Bengal.1 Indeed, so far as the easterly point is concerned, it can be shown that Western Bengal became a scene of the Ajvikas and the older Nigganthas (Parsva's followers) even before the Jinahood of Gosāla. According to the Bhagavatī account Gosāla and Mahāvīra met each other in Nālamda and thence- forward they lived together for six years in Paniyabhumi, which was a place according to the Jaina commentaries in Vajjabhūmi, elsewhere, described as one of the two divisions of Ladha.2 The Ayāramga Sntta contains a fine Prakrit ballad,3 where it is related that Mahavira wandered for some time as a naked mendicant in Ladha of which Vajjabhūmi and Subbhabhūmi were apparently two divi- sions. Ladha is described as a pathless conntry (duccara). The rude natives of the place generally maltreated the ascetics. When they saw the asceties, they called up their dogs by the cry of "Chucchu " 4 and set them upon the samanas. It was difficult to travel in Lādha. It is said that many recluses lived in Vajjabhūmi where they were bitten by the dogs and cruelly treated in a hundred other ways. Some of the recluses carried bam boo staves in order to keep off the dogs (latthim gahāya ņālīyan).5 We have scen that Upaka, the Ājīvika, des- cribed himself, while he has living in a frontier district of Bengal, as a mendicant carrying a staff, his expression "latthihattho pure āsim" implying that the Ājīvikas habitually went about with a staff in hand, which was a matter of necessity with them. These Jaina and Buddhist references can well explain why Panini described the

1 Aecording to the commentary of the Kalpasūtra, it is a place in Vajrabhūmi. 2 Śīlānka's tīkā on the Āyāramgasutta 1. 8, 3, 2. 3 Ohāņasūya, the discourse which is to be listened to. Āyāramga, 1. 8. * Āyāramga I. 8. 3. 4. 5 Ibid, I. 8.3. 5. 8

58 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

Maskariņa as a class of wanderers provided with bamboo staves (maskara-maskariņo-veņuparivrājakayoḥ). So far as the westerly point is concerned, we have seen that towards the close of Gosala's life the Ajiviyas were being driven even out of Savatthi. The Buddhist literature alse preserves a few episodes where the Ajīvikas came into conflict with the Buddhists in Savatthi.1 It is mentioned in the Bhagavatī Sūtra that the Ājīvika centre was shifted not long after Gosala's death to Punda, a country at the foot of the Vinjha mountains, of which the capital was a city provided with a hundred gates (Sayaduvāra). A king Mahāpauma (Mahāpadma), otherwise known as Devaseņa and Vimalavāhaņa, is said to have persecuted the Jainas at the instigation of the Ajiviyas, whose royal patron he was. The wicked king was destroyed by the magical powers of a Jaina saint named Sumangala, the disciple of Arahat Vimala.2 It is also recorded in the Bhagavatī that Ambada Dadha- painna, a wealthy citizen of the great Videha country, sought to bring about a reconciliation between the hostile sects by conferring with the Jainas.3 The fifteenth chapter of the Bhagavati >utra seems to have been the record of an age when the Ajivika and Jaina religions were spread over Anga, Vanga, Magaha, Malaya, Mālava, Accha, Vaccha, Koccha, Pādha, Lādha, Bajji, Moli, Kāsi, Kosala, Avaha and Sambhuttara, of which some are countries which were situated outside the territorial division of the Middle country, e.g., Vanga, Malaya, Mālava, Accha, Koccha, Pādha, Lādha, Avaha and Sambhuttara.+ The same chapter also points to an age when many Vedic and non-Aryan deities were affiliated to

1 Vimškhavatthu, Dhammapada Commentary, IV. No. 8. Hoernle's Appendix, I, pp. 11.12. › Ibid, p. 14. * Ibid, pp. 6-7.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 59

the Ājīviya pantheon, e.g., Puņņabhadda, and Māņibhadda, Sohamma, Saņakkumāra, Bambha, Mahāsukka, Aņaya and Āraņa.1 The Ājīvikas believed that to those who prac- tised the penance of Pure Drink, two gods Punnabhadda and Manibhadda appeared on the last night of six months, and held their limbs with their cool and wet hands; if they submitted then to their caresses, they furthered the work of serpents, and if they did not, then a mys- terious fire arose in their bodies to consume them.2 Puņņabhadda and Māņibhadda are represented as if they were the local deities of Punda, where the twin gods were looked pon as generals of King Devasena Mahapauma.3 We say that some of the non-Aryan and Vedic deities were affiliated into the Ajīvika pantheon, because in the Buddhist Niddesas the worshippers of Puņnabhadda and Manibhadda are described as repre- senting two distinct groups of worshippers, distinct from the Ajīvikas, the Niganthas and the rest. The Niddesa list includes the following, apparently under two cate- gories of disciples (schools) and devotees (sects)- (1) Disciples: the Ajīvikas, the Niganthas, the Jațilas, the Paribbājakas, and the Aviruddhakas. (2) Devotees: Worshippers of elephant, of horse, cow, dog, crow, Vāsudeva, Baladeva, Puņņa- bhaddadeva, Maņibhaddadeva, Aggi, Nāga, Suvaņņa, Yakkha, Asura, Gandhabba, Mahārāja Canda, Suriya, Inda, Brahmā, Deva, and Disā. Further, the Niddesa list points to a time when the religious sects started deifying, more or less, their heroes. The Anguttara Nikaya contains an older list of ten

1 Hoernle's Appendix, I, p. 14. 2 Ibid, p. 11. 8 Cullaniddesa, pp. 173-174 :- Ājīvika-sāvakanam Ājīvikadevatā, Nigaņțha. aāvakānam Nigaņthadevatā ete., cf. Mahāniddesa, pp. 89-92.

60 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

religious orders of which five only aro noticed in the, Niddesa under the first category, while under the second category are ineluded the various groups of devotees which are not to be found in the former.1 The ano- maly thus involved can perhaps be explained away by the supposition that some of the orders had died out when the Niddesa list was closed, e.g., the Mundasāvakas ; or that the older list was considcred as redundant, e.g., in the case of the Paribbājakas and the Tedaņdikas ; or that the Niddesa groups of devotees were promiscuously comprised under one name, e.g., Devadhammika, the worshipper of deities in general. In support of the third hypothesis I may refer the reader to the commentarial fragment on precepts in the Brahmajalasutta, where there is reference to the worship of the sun, the worship of the mother earth, and the invocation of Siri, the goddess of Luck'. But the reader can at once judge for himself that the deities and forms of worship mentioned in the Brahmajalasutta were not all foreign to the Vedic, and further that the worshippers of these deities did not form distinct groups or corporations3. Moreover, some of the deities and forms of worship mentioned in the Niddesas are referred to in Pāņini's Aștâdhyāyī+ and the Jaina Upānga the Aupapātika Sūtra. The former speaks of devotion to Mahārāja, Vāsudeva, Arjuņa, clan and country, while the latter makes mention of Vāsudeva, Baladeva, and Cakkavattī in whose existence the Jainas

1 Ańguttara, pt. Ill, Äjīvika, Nigaņtha, Mnņdasāvaka, Jațilaka, Paribbājaka, Magandika, Tedaņdika, Aviruddhaka, Gotamaka, Devadhammika. Dial. B. Il. pp. 220-222. 2 Dīghanikāya, 1, pp. 3 The following are mentioned in the Milinda, p. 191, as ganas : Malla, Atona, Pabbatā, Dhammagiriyā, Brahmagiriyā, Națakā, Naceakā, Langhakā, Pisācā, Maņibhadda, Puņņabhaddā, Candima-Suriyā, Siridevatā, Kali or Kāli-devatā, Sivā, Vāsudevā, Ghanikā, Asipāsā, Bhaddipnttā. + Pāņini, IV. 3. 95-100.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 61

were called upon to believe. The very fact that Vāsudeva, Baladeva and Emperor were recognised by the Jainas among prominent personalities (Salākāpurușas) is an evidence that some sort of synthesis took place among the different religious communities, living in the same country and perhaps under the same rule. Thus three different records of the Brahmans, the Jainas and the. Buddhists concur in pointing to a time when the rival religious seets had to make a compromise among them by aceepting the deities of one another, especially to an epoch when the Emperor had to be worshipped as a god. The Mahābodhijātaka also bears testimony to the fact that polities (Khattavijja) teaching that one should seek one's material advantage even by killing one's parents passed into a. religious dogma.1 All these seem to bring out one fact cis. that such changes in Indian religion were coeval with the foundation of an empire and consequent on the growth of the idea of personality in religion and state. Seeing that the beginnings of these developments were as old as the the Buddha's life-time,e it seems probable that the process of deification in religion and state ran side by side with the making of the Magadha Empire. There can be no gainsaying that the Ājīvikas retained an important position during the Maurya rule. The Kautilya Arthaastra, which may be regarded in a sense as a faithful record of Candragupta's administra- tion. prohibits by penal legislation entertainment of the Śākyas (Buddhists) and the Ijīvikas at the time of śrūddha

• Jātaka, Vol. V, p. 228: Khattavijjāvādī "Mātāpitarôpi māretvā attano va attho kametabbo " ti ganhāpesi. It is especially to be noted that the doctrine referred to is to be found in the verse-quotation from the canonical Jātaka Book, which is as old as the 4th century B.C., if not older, cf. p. 240. 2 Anguttara, I. pp. 77: Tathāgato ca araham sammā sambuddho rājā ca cakkavattī ...... acchariyamanussā ...... (yesam) kālakiriyā bahuno janassa anutappā ...... dve thūparahā. Cf ; Digha II. p. 142.

62 THE ĀJIVIKAS

and sacriflce.' This is not surely to be cited as an in- contestable proof of religious persecution in the face of other evidences proving that the ascetics in general were avoided by Indian peoples on such occassions.' The very sight of the samnyasins, particulary of naked mendicants like the Ajīvikas, was repulsive to persons of good taste, especially to the womenfolk who were the custodians of good manners then as now. It is said of the Buddhist lady Visakha that she remarked at the sight of the Ajīvikas: "Such shameless persons, completely devoid of the sense of decency, cannot be Arahants."3 The same feeling is expressed more emphatically with regard to the naked Jaina ascetic in the Divyâvadana through the mouth of a courtezan in the following verses :1 "Katham sa buddhimān bhavati puruso vyañjanâvitaḥ lokasya paśyato yo' ayam grāme carti nagnakaḥ Yasyáyam īdriśo dharmaļ purastāl lambate daśā tasya vai śravaņan rājā kşurapreņāvakrintatu." The real attitude of a Brahman teacher of polity and minister of state like Visņugupta or Cāņakya towards the Ājīvikas and naked ascetics in general is elearly brought out in a story of the Pañcatantra.5 The substance of the story is that Manibhadra, an unfortunate banker of Pāțaliputra,6 was directed by the angel Padmanidhi in dream to strike him with a lakula when he would appear

1 Shamasastry's Arthasastra, 251: Those who entertained the Buddhists and the Ajivikas at the time of áraddha and sacrifice were punishable by a fine of 100 paņas. " The P'aramatthajotika, 111. Vol. 1. p. 175 records the following Brahmanie belief: "mangalakiccesn samaņadassanam amangalam." 3 Dhamunapada Commentary, p. 400: "evarūpa hirottappavirahita arahantā nāma uahonti." + Divyâvadāna, p. 165. Ibid, p. 370 Pañcatantra, ed. Kielhorn, V. 1. Pațaliputra is placed in the Deccan (Dākșiņātyo).

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 63

next morning before him in the guise of a Ksapaņaka, and strangely enough, carrying ont the angel's suggestion the banker was much surprised to find the body of the Ksapaņaka transmuted into gold. A covetous barber who happened to witness this wonderful feat of miracle conceived a plan of obtaining gold by striking the Ksapa- nakas with a lakuta. With this end in view, he lost no time to go to a Kşapaņaka monastery where after showing due hononr to the Jinendra, he recited three couplets expressive of the religious sentiments of three sects-the Ajivika, the Jaina and the Buddhist. The second couplet which strikes the keynote of the Ajīvika and Jaina faiths is : " Sā jihvā yā jinam stauti, taccittam yat jine rataḥ Tāveva ca karau slāghyau vau tat pūjā karau. " "That is the tongue which praises the Lord ; that the heart which is devoted to the Lord, and those hands are verily praiseworthy which honour Him." Thus the cunning barber managed to induce the Ksapaņakas to accept invitation to dinner in his house, and when they came in a body next morning, he struck them with a strong lakuta as they stepped into his house one after another. The news of the murder and ranic of the Ksapanakas soon spread through the city. The barber was arrested, tried, found guilty and severely punished. The Ksapaņaka of the story is evidently a mixed character combining the Jaina with the Ājīvika. In the story itself the Ksapanaka is described as a naked mendicant (nagnaka), a Digambara worshipper of the Jinas, replete with supreme knowledge (kevala-jñāna-sālinām). It goes to show that both the Jaina and the Ajīvika, in common with other naked ascetics, had pretension to supernaturalism and miracles, and that with them Jinahood constituted the highest ideal of human perfec- tion. The name of the banker Manibhadra is itself

64 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

of great importance as confirming the Bhagavati account representing the disciples of Gosāla as votaries of the twin angels Punnabhadda and Māņibhadda. Vișņugupta's teaching in the story is that the proper treatment by a householder of the shameless naked ascetics professing to possess supernormal faculties was to strike them with the very staff which some of them carried ahout them, to apply, in other words, his own Dandanitito the Dandins. But this course was not meant to be adopted literally, since a principle which was valid in theory might lead to disastrous consequences when blindly adhered to in practice. The disastrous consequences here contemplated are typified in the story by the tragic fate of the Ksapa- nakas and the barber. Visākhadatta's Mudrārāksasa which is one of the most important historical dramas in Sanskrit, dated between the 5th and the 6th century A.D.,1 paints the character of a Ksapaņaka who, like the Ksapanaka of the Pañca- tantra story, is relegated to the same period, and is a mixed character2 representing the Ajivika and the Digam- bara Jaina under one name. Mr. Telang points out that Cāņakya introduced the Ksapaņaka to Rākșasa, and that a Brahman minister became so close a friend of his as to speak of his heart itself having been taken possession of by the enemy when he saw him.3 The chief motive of the play is not far to seek; Visākhadatta in eulogising the shrewd political principles of the Indian Machiavelli sought to show how even a naked mendicant, houseless, dispassionate, meditating on the reality of the living principle (jīvasiddhi ksapaņaka) could be made a friend

1 Mr. Telang.places the date of the play between the 7th and the 8th centnry A.D., Mr. Vincent Smith between the 5th and the 6th century A.D., and Prof. Hillebrandt in 400 A.D. 2 Cf. Telang's introduction to his edition of the Mudrārāksasa, p. 17. Prof. Wilson thinks that ksapanaka denotes in the play a Jaina, not a Bnddhist. ."' Ibid, p. 19.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 65

of ferocious Mammon (Mudrārākșasa) to serve as a tool of Cāņakya (Cāņakya-praņidhi).' The Ksapanaka is introduced in the play as a mendi- cant with shaved head (mundia muņda),2 spcaking Prākrit instead of Sanskrit, an exponent of the reality of the living principle (jivasiddhi),3 respecting the teaching of the Arahants,4 irascible or hot-tempered, greedy of lucre, adept in palmistry, fortune-teller, consulted for fixing lucky days, an hypocrite always crying out, "There is no iniquity for the followers, "5 wishing success to laymen in their business concerns,6 and proclaiming victory of the cause of righteousness.7 But the Ksapa- naka in question serving as a spy or 'Cānakya's tool' as it is called, cannot be reasonably taken as a true repre- . sentative of his order except under the supposition that his pretensions were characteristic of the naked medi- cants whom he was called upon to imitate in his outward demeanour. The picture drawn of the Ksapaņaka seems to have a touch of reality receiving confirmation from two older Sanskrit treatises, the Kautilya Arthaśastra and the Vātsyâyana Kāmasūtra, which in their general form, style and purpose can be said to belong to the same materialistic age. Vātsyâyana Kāmasūtra speaks of the houses and estab- lishments of the female attendants, bhiksuņis, kşapaņikās and tāpasis as the fittest places for love-intrigues,s as in the much later treatises on poetics we find that the rule

1 Mudrārāksasa, Telang's edition, p. 258. Jīvasiddhirapi Cāņakya-praņidhi. 9 Ibid, p. 222. 5 Ibid, p. 252. Note that jiva is the first of the Jaina navatattras. + Ibid, p. 212 : Sāsanam alihantānam. 5 "N'atthi pāvan:, n'atthi pāvam sāvagāņamı." 8 " Kajjasiddhi hodu sāvagāņam." 7 " Dhammasiddhi hodu sāvagāņam." 8 Kāmasītra, V. 4. 42: Sakhī-bhikşukī-kşapaņikā-tāpasi-bhavanesu snkhôpāyab cf. Ibid, IV. 1.9: Bhikşukī-śramaņā-kşapaņā-mūlakārikābhir na samsrijyeta. I am indebted to Pandit Bidhu Shekhar Bhattacharyya for these references. 9

66 THE AJĪVIKAS

is laid down to select female attendants, dancing girls and female ascetics to play the part of messengers in love intrigues,' which is illustrated in the Mālatī Madhava by the character of the Buddhist sister Kāmandakī, busy with her disciple Avalokitā and friend Buddharakkhita arranging for secret marriages.2 One may find parallels in the stories of Devasmita in the Kathāsarit Sāgara3 and of Nitambavatī in the Dasa- kumāracarita,+ where the Buddhist female ascetics are represented as taking an active part in such indefensible affairs.5 How far these references represent a real state of things this is not the place to discuss. But the Artha- sāstra also bears evidence to the fact that the religious

. orders in the 4th century B.C. were not free from such moral corruptions, although the cases of moral trans- gression were confined to a few individuals. It also goes to prove that with the rapid growth of a centralised form of government it was possible for Cāņakya to organise a most elaborate system of espionage under which the services of all, whether recluses or house- holders, cultivators or traders, wise or idiot, male or female, could be utilised for the promotion of material advantages, and under which even a Ksapaņaka medi- tating on the reality of the living principle could easily be induced to serve the purpose of a state, as a tool in the hands of Cānakya. The Arthasastra devotes two chapters, XI and XII, to the subjects of training persons in espionage (gūdhapurușôtpatti) and of employing spies in different branches of secret service (gūdhapuruşa- pranidhi). It appears from the rules laid down therein that spies were recruited, if possible, from among the

1 Sāhitya-darpaņa, III. 157 : Dūtyaḥ sakhī-natī pravrajitā." Jātaka, I. p. 257. DivyAvadāna, p. 427. Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 90. 5 JĀtaka, I, p. 493.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 67

recluses of different orders, mundas and jatilas, hermits and wanderers, males and females, who were seekers of livelihood (vrittikama) by such clandestine means. The spies in the guise of female ascetics were employed to watch movements of persons in the harems (antahpure), the siddha hermits outside a fort, and the Śramans, if necessary, in a forest. The spies disguised as mundas, jatilas or hermits had to live together with a large follow- ing in the suburbs of a city, pretending to subsist on pot-herbs and wheat, eating once at the interval of a month or two. Thus we have sufficient reasons to accept the Ksapaņaka of the Mudrārākșasa as true to life, but the state of moral corruptions in which the Ājīvikas and the Jainas were implicated along with various other orders of aseetics was in no way peculiar to the age of Cāņakya and Candragupta Maurya, for, as I expect to show in part II, these were among the natural adjuncts to the growth of the centralised forms of government and to the erection of monastic eloisters. Visakhadatta's account of the inti- macy of the Ksapanaka with Malayaketu upholding the banner of Malaya country whieh, according to the Bhaga- vatī account, became a common stronghold of the Jainas and the Ājīvikas, and the use of a Ksapaņaka by Cāņakya as a weapon against King Mahāpadma Nanda is of some historical importance. King Devaseņa Mahāpauma of Punda is described in the Bhagavati, as we have seen, as a patron of the Ajīvikas, and it is not improbable that the Jaina Sūtra has confounded the emperor of Magadha with a petty chief of a country at the foot of the Viñjha mountains. The very name of King Mahāpauma's capital Sayaduvāra, a city with a hundred gates reminds one of a magnificient metropolis like Pāțaliputra. The Divyavadana mentions Pingalavatsa as an Ājīvika who was employed in the service of king

68 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

Vindusāra as a court-astrologer,1 while a Jātaka story preserves an old tradition to the effect that astrology was almost a professien with the Ajivikas even in the Buddha's life-time.' The Divyâvadana testifies to the fact that Pundavardhana was a stronghold of the Ājīvikas in the time of king Aśoka.3 Prince Vītasoka was a patron of the Ajīvikas who are confounded, as noticed by Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar, with the Nirgranthas or Jainas.4 He was a strong believer in physical torture which the Buddhist considered useless (micchatapa).5 The conflict. of claims involved between the two standpoints is clearly brought out in the following verses : 1. Buddhist thesis- Na nagnacaryā na jațā na pańko nānāśanamn sthandilaśāyikā vā na rajomalam nôtkuțukaprahāņam visodhayen moham aviśīrņakānkham. Alainkritam câpi careta dharamam dāntêndriyah santaḥ samyato brahmacārī sarveșu bhūtesu nidhāya dan 'am sa brāmanaḥ sa śramaņa

2. Ājīvika antithesis- sa bhikşuḥ.6

Kaşțe'smin vijane vane nivasatām vāyavambu-mūlâśinām rāgo naiva jito yadiha rişinā kālaprakarșena hi Bhuktvânnam saghritam prabhūtapisitam dadhyûttamâlamkritam Śākyesvindriyanigraho yadi bhaved Vindhyah plavet sāgare. 7 The Divyâvadāna also relates that 18,000 Ājīvikas at Pundavardhana had to pay a heavy toll of dcath in

1 Mālatī Mādhava, Bombay Sanskrit Series, Act 1, p. 9. 2 Kathāsarit Sāgara, Taranga XIII, No. 68. 3 Daśakumāracarita, Cal. edition, p. 121. * Cf. Telang's introduction to the Mudrārākșasa, p. 19. 5 Divyâvadāna, p. 339. Cf. Dhammapada, verse 141-142; Mahābhārata, III, verse 13455; Suttanipāta, verse 249. Divyâvadāna, p. 420. Cf. Bhattrihari's oft-quoted śloka :- Visvamitra-Parasara-prabhritayo vatambu-parnasanah; te' pi strīnam śrīmukha- pankajam dristvâpi mohamgatāķ Sakânnaın ságbritai payodadhiyutam ye bhuñjate māna vasteșam indriyanigraho yadi bhavet pańgustaret sāgaram. 7 The Ajivikas are wrongly described as Nirgrantha upāsakas.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 69

one day in the hands of King Asoka for the fault of one Nirgrantha upasaka' who had dishonoured the Buddha- image. Deeply grieved at similar sacrilege committed by another Nirgrantha upāsaka at Pataliputra, the king burned him alive together with his kinsmen, and announced by a royal proclamation that the reward of a Dinūra would be given to a person who could produce the head of a Nirgrantha, with the result that his own brother prince Vītasoka was found among the victims.2 It is in- conceivable that king Asoka was ever implicated in such an atrocious crime as the Divyâvadāna would have us believe. The tradition just referred to must be regarded as spurious and baseless for the simple reason that the Buddha is nowhere represented by an image in any sculpture which can be dated in Asokan age. We are aware, moreover, that King Asoka in his seventh Pillar Edict, where he sums up the various measures adopted by him towards the propagation of dhamma, expressly · states that he had employed his Dharmamahāmātras for dispensing the royal favour to, and exercising supervision over, the Brahmans, the Ajīvikas and the Jainas, as among all other sects.' Furthermore, the king elsewhere3 declares that he granted two cave-dwellings to the Ájīvikas when he had been consecrated twelve years. That the Ajīvikas continued to enjoy certain amount of respect from the people of Magadha and retained a hold

1 Divyâvadāna, p. 427; Puņdavardhane ekadivase astādaśasah- asrānyājīvikānām praghātitāni. 2 Devānai piye Piyadasi hevam āhā: Dhamma Mahamatâpi me te. bahuvidhesu ațhesu āuugahikesu viyāpațā ......... se samghatasi pi me kațe ime viyāpațā hohamtiti; hemeva bābhanesu ājīvikesu pi me kate ime viyāpatā hohamtiti; nigamthesu pi me kate ime viyāpatā hohamti; nānāpāsaudesu pi me kațe ime viyāpațā hohamtiti. Pativisitham patīvisitham tesu tesu te te mahāmāta dhammamahāmātā cn me etesn ceva viyāpațā savesu ca amnesu pāsamdesn. 3 i.e., in his Cave Inscriptions : (1) Lājinā Piyadasinā duvādasavasābhi (sitenā) iyamn nigohakubhā dinā ājīvikehi: (2) Lījinā Piyadasinā duvādasavasābhisitenā iyam kubhā khalatikapavatasi dinā ājīvikehi.

70 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

on the liberality of the Mauryas even after the reign of Asoka is proved by the three cave dedications in the Nāgārjuni Hills, made by King Dasaratha, who perhaps succeeded his grandfather Asoka in the throne of Magadha. No inscription has been found as yet record- ing gifts to any other sect, particularly to Buddhists which one might well expect from him, seeing that he was the grandson and successor of the greatest Buddhist Emperor of India. The presumption is that whatever his faith may have been, his mind was obsessed with the Ajīvika creed. The Ajīvika influence continued in Northern India to the end of the Maurya rule, to the time of Patañjali who is placed by modern scholars in circa 150 B.C. For we have notieed that Patañjali in his comment on Paņini's Sūtra, VI. 1. 154, was not content with calling the Maskariņa a Maskariņa simply because he carried a bamboo staff about him, but went a step further in suggesting that the name Maskarī also signified that he taught "mā kritakarmāņi, mā kțita- karmāņi," i.e., "don't perform actions, don't perform actions, &c.," whieh he eould not have done in departure from the original sutra of Paņini, if he had no personal acquaintance with the views of the Maskariņas. The Milindapañho (circa 1st eentury A.D.) takes some notice of the fatalistic creed of Makkhali Gosāla, who is wrongly represented as a contemporary of Milinda (Menander B.C. 155), the Indo-Bactrian king of Sāgala.1 The Milinda aecount is in essence the same as that which is to be found in the Samaññaphala Sutta, with this im- portant difference that it interprets Gosala's doctrine of fate as being completely adapted to the rigid caste-system of the Brahmans.' Such an interpretation of his doctrine of fate

' Mitinda, pp. 4.5. 2 Ibid, p. 5: N'atthi ...... Kusalâkusalāni kammāni, n'atthi sukațadukkatānam kammānamn phalam vipāko, ...... ye te idhaloke khattiyā te paralokai gantvā ip pnna khattiyā va bhavissanti, etc.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 71

as this would seem incompatible with his general theory of evolution, teaching that even a dew-drop is destined to attain perfection through transmigration. It would be interesting, nevertheless, if the historian could prove that the Ajivika creed found its adherents in the cosmopolitan city of Sāgala, situated not far from Alasanda dīpa (the island of Alexandria), enumerated in the Mahaniddesa as an important port.' Here I would just call attention to two controversies in the Milinda which have reference to the common views and practices of the Ajīvikas and the Jainas : (1) the controversy as to whether water is a living substance-"kim ...... udakam jīvati ?"2 (2) the controversy as to whether suicide is a crime -- " Na attānam pātetabbam ?"8 The Bhagavatī Sūtra also refers to an Ajīviya com- mitting religious suicide at Videha some centuries after Gosala's death.4 When the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hien visited India in the 5th Century A.D., he saw 96 different sects of Northern India in Savatthi, among whom he mentions only the followers of Devadatta by name. From this it is not clear that the Ajivikas retained a hold at that time on Savatthi proper. Indeed the subsequent history of the Ajīvikas shows that the Ajīvikas found a stronghold outside the Middle Country. Referring to Varahamihira's list of religious orders laying down rules of ordination under different constella- tions and planets,5 his commentator Utpala says that his enumeration was based on the anthority of the Jaina

Mahaniddesa, p. 155. Rhys Davids is of opinion that it was an island in the Indns. 4 Milinda p. 258 Ibid, p. 195. Hoernle's Appendix T, p. 14. : Vrihajjātaka, XV. 1. y See extraet from Utpaln's commentary, quoted in Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 287.

72 THE ĀJĪVIKAS

teacher Kālakâcārya, and substantiates his position by citation of actual words of the latter.' Varahamihira's list includes : (1) Śākya, the wearer of scarlet robe. (2) Ājīvika, the one-staff man. (3) Bhikşu, or Sanmyāsin. (4) Vriddhaśrāvaka, the skull bearer. (5) Caraka, the wheel-bearer. (6) Nirgrantha, the naked one. (7) Vanyâśana, or hermit.2 There are two lists3 of Kālakâcārya. The first list as explained by the commentator comprises :- (1) Tāvasia=Tāpasika, hermit. (2) Kāvālia=Kāpālika, skull bearer. (3) Rattavada=Raktapata, one of scarlet robe. (4) Eadaņdī=Ekadaņdī, one staff-man. (5) Jai=Yati. (6) Caraa=Caraka. (7) Khavanāi=Kșapaņaka. The second list consists of (1) Jalana=jvalana, sâgnika. (2) Hara=Īśvarabhakta, God-worshipper, i.e., Bhat- țāraka. (3) Sugaya=Sugata, i.e., Buddhist. (4) Keśava=Keśavabhakta, worshipper of Keśava, i.e., Bhāgavata. (5) Sui=Śrutimārgarata, one adhering to the rule of śruti, i.e., Mīmāmsaka.

1 Šākyo raktapațah ...... Ājīvikas caikadaņdī ..... bhikşnr bhavati samnyāsī jñeyah .... Vriddhaśravakaḥ kāpāli ...... carako cakradharab ...... Nirgrantho nagnaḥ kşapaņa- kaḥ ...... vanyâsanaḥ tapasvī. See extract from Utpala's Commentary in Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 287. " Bühler's "Barabar and Nagarjnni hill-cave inscriptions of Asoka and Daśa- ratha," J.B.A.S., Vol. XX, p. 362. Cf. J. R. A. S., 1911, p. 960.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 73

(6) Brahma=Brahmabhakta, worshipper of Brahmā i.e., Vānaprastha. (7) Nagga=Nagna, naked, i.e., Kşapaņaka. Professor D. R. Bhandarkar has rendered a great service by rectifying a fatal error in the interpretation of Utpala's commentary, which led such veteran Sanskritists as Professors Kern and Bühler to suppose that the Ājīvi- kas were the worshippers of Nārāyaņa, i.e., Bhāgavatas.' But now thanks to Prof. Bhandarkar no one doubts that Utpala's meaning was just the contrary. The Ājīvikas and the Bhāgavatas furnished him with a typical instance whereby he could illustrate upalaksana, a figure of Rhetoric used in characterising what a word does not denote. "Ājīvikagrahaņam ca Nārāyaņâśritānām," i.e., to accept one as an Ajīvika is not to denote a wor- shipper of Nārāyaņa.1 Thus we see that the Ajīvika or Ekadandin formed a distinct element among the religious sects known to Varāhamihira (circa A.D. 525), the celebrated astronomer who is said to have been one of the nine gems adorning the court of King Vikramāditya of Ujjain, the capital of eastern Malwa and formerly that of Avanti in the Deccan. The Harsacarita goes to prove that King Harsa, whose reign in the 7th century A.D. was characterised by eclecticism in popular religion, brought together the different religious sects and adherents of different schools in his dominion, where he listened to their respective views (svān svān siddhāntāni),3 and the Kumbha-melā taking place at the interval of twelve years is a modern institution which serves the same purpose of bringing together the different sects from the various parts of the 1 Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 288. Early History of the Vaishnava Sect, p. 116. Smith's Early History of India, 3rd edition, p. 345. 3 Harsacarita, Nirnaya Sagara Press edition, VIII, p. 265 10

74 THE ĀJIVIKAS

country. These sects and schools in the Harsacarita in- cluded among others : (1) Maskaris=parivrājakas as the commentary calls them ; (2) Śvetapatas=a sect of the Jainas, distinguished as naked, i.e., Digambaras ; (3) Pāņdus=Bhikșus; (4) Bhagavatas=the worshippers of Visnu, i.e., Vaiș- uavas; (5) Varņis= Brahmacāris ; (6) Keśaluñcanas (?) (7) Kāpils=Sāmkhyas; (8) Jainas=Buddhists; (9) Lokāyatikas=Cārvākas; (10) Kāņādas= Vaiseșikas; (11) Aupanișadas=Vedāntins; (12) Aiśvarakāraņikas = Naiyāyikas ; (13) Karandhas=Hetuvādins ; (14) Dharmasāstris=Smritijñas; (15) Sābdas = Vaiyākaraņas, grammarians; (16) Pancaratras=a division of the Vaisnavas. There are three points about this list which are of the greatest historical importance : (a) that the name maskari is used to denote the wanderers in general, a significant fact showing that the Ājīvikas did not give up their nomadic habits up till the 7th century A.D., and that in this respect they were not a solitary instance ; (b) that the commentator uses the term Buddhist as a synonym of the Jaina (Jainair bauddhaiḥ) ; and (c) that the list includes, among others, the schools of Hindu philosophy, Kāpila, Kāņāda, etc., whose names can be traced neither in the texts that are pre-Asokan in date, nor in the Brahmanical works that can be dated as pre-Pāņinian.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 75

As regards the first point, it is important to note that the Amarakoșa counts the Maskarī among the five classes of samnyāsins,1 while in Vīranandi's Ācārasāra (Śaka 1076) the Ājīvaka is distinguished from a Parivrāt or wandering mendicant practising very severe austerities,2 and in two later Jaina and Buddhist works the ckadandin and the tridandin are enumerated as two divisions of Parivrājakas3 or Paramahamsas who aspired to develop in them the divine faculties through renunciation of all worldly concerns.4 With regard to the second point, it may be noticed that it is not a solitary instance where the Jaina5 has been confounded with the Buddhist, for there are other cases, where the Ajivika has been confounded with the Jaina,6 and the Buddhist with the Ājīvika.7 Indeed, such confusions of sects as these have no meaning in history except as showing that the sects thus confounded the one with the other appeared to have a close kinship between them to the eye of an outsider. Accordingly the meaning of the passage of the Divyâvadāna con- founding the Ajivika with the Jaina is that the two sects living side by side at Pundavardhana differed so slightly from each other, whether in their views or in their outward appearances, that it was difficult for a

1 Amarakoşa, VII. 5. 42. 2 Ācārasāra, XI. 127 : Parivrād ... ugracāravānapi ājīvakah. See Pathak's 'Ājīvikas,' Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 89. 9 Madhavacandra's Commentary on the Triloka-sāra, verse 545 : ekadaņdi- tridaņdi-lakşaņāh parivrājakāh, Ibid, p. 91. + Sarojavajra's Dohākoșa: Eka(va) daņdi tridaņdi bhava veseñ viņnā hosa hañsa uvesañ. Advayavajra in his comments on the above says: ekadaņdi. tridaņdi bhagavaveśam bhavati ...... yāvan na paramahamsa-veśam bhavati tāvajj- ñanam na labhyate sarvasannyasatvāt. See Shastry's Bauddha Gān-o-Doha, pp. 82.84. 5 Divyâvadāna, p. 42. Commentary on the Ācārasāra, XI. 127: "ājīvikaḥ bauddhabhedam ", i.e., " the Ajīvika, a division of the Buddhists." ' Kanțilya, Arthasāstra, p. 3.

76 THE ĀJIVIKAS

Buddhist observer to draw any sharp distinction between them. Similarly with reference to the passage where the commentator of the Harsacarita identifies the Jaina other than the Svetâmbara with the Buddhist, the historian is to understand either that his suggestion was based upon hearsay or that he had kept in view some parti- cular sect of the Buddhist faith who closely resembled the Jaina, e.g., the sect of Devadatta that existed in Savatthi, as appears from Fa-Hien's account, to the end of the 4th century A.D., and a remnant of whose practices the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang found to be in use at Karņasuvarņa in Eastern Bengal1 in the time of King Harsavardhana. The followers of Devadatta were not Buddhists in the sense that they did not pay homage to Gotama Buddha, but they must be said to have been Buddhists in the sense that they showed reverence to three previous Buddhas. As to the third point relating to the schools of Hindu philosophy, the orthodox Hiudu who is taught to believe that everything was done for him in a finished form by the Risis of old, long before the appearance of two power- ful heresies, known as Jainism and Buddhism, will be sorry to be told that the Kautilya Arthasastra is the oldest known Sanskrit text of which the date can be definitely placed cither in the 4th or in the 2nd century B.C., and which mentions the Sāmkhya, the Yoga and the Lokāyata among the typical instances of speculative philosophy (ānvīkakī).1 So far as the Buddhist literature is con- cerned, the Milinda-Pañho is the oldest text which includes the Samkhya, the Yoga, the Niti and the Visesikā in the list of the various sciences and arts studied by King Menander in the 2nd century B.C.

1 Milinda-Pañho, p. 3. ' Beal's Records of the Western World, 1I. p. 201; Smith's Early History of India, 8rd edition, p. 32.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 77

The subsequent history of the Ājīvikas has to be built up from a few stray references to them in literature and epigraphic records, all indicating a process of rapid decay of their religious order, which lingered with varied fortune in different parts of India, particularly in the Deccan proper. Prof. Pathak in his paper on the Ājīvikas has collected some important references from the Digambara Jaina works extant in the Canarese country.1 In the oldest of them, dated Saka 1076, the Ājīvikas are represented as a Buddhist denomination, and are said to have been entitled to existence in the heaven called Sahasrāra-kalpa, in contradistinction to the Hindu Parivrat, whose aspiration did not reach beyond the Brahma-world.2 In another work belonging to the same age, the Ājīvikas entitled to the immutable state are dis- tinguished similarly from the Carayas and the Parimbajas.3 In a third work, the Carakas are characterised as naked, while the Ekadandin and the Tridandin are enumerated as two main divisions of the Parivrajakas. In the fourth, the Ājīvikas are represented as a Buddhist denomination sub- sisting on Kamji,5 while in the fifth|belonging to the 13th century they are distinguished from the Buddhists who were meat-eaters.6 From these references Prof. Pathak is led to conclude that " the Ajīvikas were well-known to the Jaina authors of the later Chālukya and Yādava periods as a sect of Buddhist Bhikshus who lived solely or chiefly on Kamji.7"

ì Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 88 f. 2 Vīranandi's Ācārasāra, XI. 127: Parivrad brahmakalpâitam yātyugracāravānapi, Ājīvikaḥ sahasrarakalpâmtam darsanojjhitaļ. 3· * Trilokasāra, verse 545: Carayā ya parimbajā bahmoti, amcuda-padom'ti ājīvā. 6 Commentary on the Acarasara, XI. 127: Ajivakah bauddhabhedam appakamji bhiķgu. Cf. Padmaprabha's Traividya (Circa., 1400 A.D.) : Ājīvā ambila-kūļan umbaru. Buddhist argument in favour of meat-eating ia said to be :- Pātre patitam pavitrain sūktrôktam idemdu bauddhar adagam timbarn. See Māghanandi's Śrāvaķâcāra. ' Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 90.

78 THE ĀJIVIKAS

A few inscriptions have been found in Madras Presi- dency belonging to the first half of the 13th century, which record that a kind of poll-tax was imposed on the Ājīvikas.1 The reasons for imposition of this tax are nowhere stated, but the reactionary measure thus adopted by the Hindu rulers of South India was certainly not without its effect on the career of the Ajīvikas; probably it served to check the further progress of the Ājīvika movement or to compel the Ajīvikas by external pressure to merge their identity in the Shivaite and other orders of Hindu ascetics. Thus the post-Makkhali history of the Ājīvikas rang- ing over twenty centuries is to be conceived as a long and intricate process of religious development in the country which led ultimately to the extinction of the sect. The foregoing investigation has shown that the jīvika movement which commenced in the 7th or the 8th century B. C., somewhere near the Gangetic. valley, and was confined at first to the tract of land bet- ween Campa and Benares, gradually extended to Sāvatthi. Within a few centuries of Gosala's death this movement crossed at many points the territorial limits of the Middle country. Gayā and Pundavardhana were two important centres of the Ajīvika activity in the time of King Asoka. At the time when the Jaina Bhagavati Sūtra was compiled their influence was diffused over the whole of Northern India from the Bay of Bengal to the Gulf of Cutch. Towards the close of the Maurya rule the Bactrian city of Sāgala in the Punjab became a centre of liberal movements, while the kingdom of Avanti in the Deccan in its earlier territorial extension long remained an important scene of the Ajīvika propa -- ganda. The centre of gravity shifted after Harsa to 1 Hultzsh's South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I, pp. 88, 89, 92 and 108. Cf. Ind. Ant., 1912, p. 288.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 79

the Deccan proper, where, especially in the Canarese country, they encountered many reverses of fortune till they finally disappeared in the fourteenth century of the Christian era. The pathetic story of maltreatment of the Ājīvikas and other ascetics in Rādha by its rude inhabitants need not be recounted. Similar experiences of the hermits of the Vanaprastha order in other non. Aryan tracts are recorded in the Aranyakāņda of the Ramāyana and several stories of the Jātaka. This naturally suggests a most fruitful enquiry as to the part they played in the annals of Aryan colonisation and propagation of Aryan culture, followed everywhere by non-Aryan reaction, and modified by the race-cult and national characteristics which it absorbed. Moreover, in carrying on the study of the post Makkhali history of the Ajīvikas, the historian cannot but set him- self to analyse the causes of the decline of the Ājīvika faith, and it is certain that such an enquiry cannot be undertaken apart from the development of various reli- gious movements and schools of philosophy which went to rob the Ajīvika movement of its especiality. The simul- taneous processes of absorption and assimilation which seem so largely accountable for the disappearance of the Ãjivikas involve two questions of far-reaching importance, which are: (1) Where are the Ãjīvikas who maintained their existence among the rival sects up till the fourteenth century A. D., if not later ? (2) Is it that the Ajīvika system dwindled into insigni- ficance without enriching the systems which supplanted and supplemented it ? Finally, if it be admitted that truth never dies and that the Ājīvikas had a distinct message for Indian peoples, the history of the Ajīvikas cannot be concluded without a general reflection on the course of Indian history, nor

80 THE ĀJIVIKAS

can the historian discharge his true function as historian without determining the place of the Ajīvikas in the general scheme of Indian history as a whole.

14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPARTMENT This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

Due end of SPRING Quarter eubject to recall after- REC'D LD JUN 872-8 AM 8

INTERLIBRARY LOAN APR 1 0 1971 UNIV. OF CALIEY BERK. JUN 5 - 1975 1 6

LD 21-40m-2,'69 General Library (J6057s10)476-A-32 University of California Berkeley

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY