Medieval Jainism

SR No.: 011082
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhasker Anand Saletore
Publisher: Karnataka Publishing House
Total Pages: 448
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 27 MB

Page 236

CRITICAL TIMES
221 whom the queen Vilāsavati, desirous of getting a child with a mind prostrate in adoration prays and whom Bāņa calls by the name Siddha, were no doubt Ājīvikas.2 A certain amount of reproach was attached to them. This will be evident from Kautalya's Arthaśāstra in which it is said that a person who entertains in a dinner dedicated to the gods or ancestors, Buddhists, Ājīvikas, Śūdras, and exiled persons (pravrajita), will be fined 100 pana.2
From the Tamil classic Manimekhalai it is clear that the Ājīvikas were not the same as the Jainas. For Manimekhalai after listening to the essence of the teaching of Markali and finding it self-contradictory, passed on to the teaching of the Nirgrantha,3 thereby showing that the teaching of the latter was quite distinct from that of the former.
Moreover, in a record dated A.D. 1162 the naked (magna) ascetics are spoken of as distinct from the bhagna (wounded) ascetics and the Kşapanakas, Ekadaņdis, and others, proving that the people did not associate the Asīvikas or naked ascetics with the Jainas at all.
And, finally, the State in southern and western India differentiated between the Ajīvikas and the Jainas. In the Tamil stone inscriptions discovered in Karnātaka the Ājīvikas were taxed per capita, while the Jainas like other citizens were taxed per house. In the Tamil records the Ājīvikas are styled Āśuvimakkaļ. In an inscription dated A.D. 1072 of the 3rd regnal year of the king Rājendra Cola, the inhabitants of the Eighteen vişaya, the Vaļangai sec
1. Kadambari, p. 56 (Ridding). Even modern scholars have confounded the Digambaras with the Ajīvikas. Takakusu commits such an error. 1-T sing's Travels., p. 2.
2. Kautilya, Arthaśāstra, p. 224. 3. S. K. Ayyangar, Manimekhalai, p. 194. 4. E. C. VII. SK. 102, p. 73.