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ĀJĪVIKISM AND GOŚĀLA
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famous war must be dismissed as a piece of poetic fancy. The same remark applies to another list of eight finalities, which coincided with Gośāla's death, namely the last sprinkling-scent elephant (gandhahastī) which, according to the Nirayavalikā, was the cause of dispute between Cetaka and Ajātaśatru.
From the Nanguttha Jätaka we learn that there was a group of Ajivika ascetics living near Jetavana in Srāvasti who were in the habit of performing difficult penances. That the Ajīvikas were respected for their austere life is clear from a number of passages in the Pāli canon. In an identical passage, preserved in the Majjhimash and Samyutta, Gośāla is praised by a deva for his perfect self-control. He is further delineated there as a speaker of truth and doer of no evil. Elsewhere in a Vinaya passage 38 we find the Ajīvikas condemning Buddhist monks for carrying parasols. These pieces of evidence strongly suggest that the Ajīvikas were respected for their strict and austere living.
It is surprising that the Ajīvikas, who could lead such an austere life, should hold fatalistic views regarding life and nature. Their teaching, as represented in the Sāmaññaphalasutta, deny action (kiriya), endeavour (viriya), and the result of action (kamma). According to Gośāla, all beings attain perfection through samsārasuddhi. We can understand why Buddha could not tolerate the Ajivikas, who were against all his ideas and ideals. 'Like a fish-trap set at river-mouth, Makkhali was born into the world to be a man-trap for the distress and destruction of men',99 Buddha declared. But in spite of such warnings, a number of respectable people of the Buddha's own time chose this religion in preference to the teachings of the Buddha and Mahāvīra.
In several places in the Jaina canon we find references to Ajīvika devotees and the Ajīvika doctrines. In the Upāsakadašā^we have one Saddālaputta, who was a devotee of Gośāla. Another lay devotee called Ayampula is mentioned in the Bhagavati.41
References in the later literature and epigraphs fully prove that Ājīvikisms survived up to the late mediaeval period. The inscriptions of Asoka and his successor testify that the Ājīvikas were held in esteem in the Mauryan period. In the seventh Pillar Edict^2 they are mentioned after the Bauddhas and Brāhmaṇas, but before the Nirgranthas. In the Barabar Hill cave (Gayā district, Bihar) inscriptions have been discovered according to which Aśoka made a gift of several caves to the Ajīvikas in his twelfth and nineteenth regnal
