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The Lokāyata, Nāstika and Cārvāka 523 Bịhaj-jātaka (xv. I) of Varāha Mihira in the middle of the sixth century A.D. Silānka (ninth century) also refers to them in his commentary on the Sūtra-kṛtānga-sūtra (1. 1. 3. 12 and 1. 3. 3. 11), in which the Ajivakas are mentioned along with Trai-rāśikas as being followers of Makkhali Gosāla?. Halāyudha also mentions the ājīvas as being the same as the Jains in general; but does not distinguish the nirgranthas from the Digambaras or identify the latter with the Ajīvakas as Hoernlé says in his article on the Ajīvakas. Hoernle further points out in the same article that in the thirteenthcentury inscriptions on the walls of the Perumal Temple at Poygai near Virinchipuram reference is made to the taxes imposed on the Ajivakas by the Chola king Rājarāja in the years A.D. 1238, 1239, 1243 and 1259. Thus it is clear that the Ajīvaka school of Makkhali which was started by Makkhali in the fifth century B.C. continued to exist and spread not only in North India but also in South India, and other schools also have developed out of it such as the Trairāsikas. Pāṇini's grammar has a rule(IV. 1. 154), maskara-maskariņau venuparivrājakayoḥ, which signifies that maskara means a bamboo and maskarin a travelling ascetic. Patañjali, however, in commenting on it, says that maskarins were those who advised the nonperformance of actions and held that cessation (śānti) was much better (māskrta karmāņi śāntir vah śreyasi ityāha ato maskarī parivrājakaḥ). The word, therefore, docs not necessarily mean ekadandins or those who boreone bamboo staff. Theidentification of Makkhali with maskarins is therefore doubtfull. It is also very doubtful whether the Ajīvakas can be regarded as the same as Digambara Jains, as Hoernlé supposes, for neither Varāha nor Bhottolpala identifies the Ajīvakas with the Tains, and Sīlānka treats them as different and not as identical?. Halāyudha also does not speak of the Digambaras
1 The Trai-rāśikas are those who think that the sclf by good deeds becomes pure and free from karma and thus attains mokşa, but seeing the success of its favourite doctrines it becomes joyous and seeing them neglected it becomes angry, and then being born again attains purity and freedom from karma by the performance of good deeds and is again born through joy and antipathy as before. Their canonical work is one containing twenty-one sütras. In commenting on 1. 3. 3. 11 Silanka mentions also the Digambaras along with the Ājīvakas, but it does not seem that he identifies them in the way Hoernlé states in his scholarly article on the Ajīvakas in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. The exact phrase of Silänka is ājīvakā-dinām para-tīrthikānām digamvarāņām ca asadācaranair upaneyā.
2 Hoernlé, in his article on the Ajivakas in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, says: "From this fact that Gosāla is called Makkhaliputta or Mankhali (Maskarin), i.e. the man of the bamboo staff, it is clear that originally he belonged
