Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 293

Don
, 1912.)
AJIVIKAS
289
When the maid-servant approached the Anâtbapiņdikáérams, she saw the naked Bhikshus, bet concluded from their being naked that they were Ajivikas. The other story, which is from tho Nissaggiya, is, that, while « few Bhikshas left Saketa for Sravasta, they were waylaid by robbers, who deprived them of their robes. Being forbidden by the Buddha to ask for another garment, they wont naked to Srävast to meet the other Bhikshus there. But the latter instead of recognising them as mendicants of their order, misteek them for Ajfvikas as they were unclotbed.
The Ailvikas covered their bodies with dust, and ate the ordure of a calf. They were noted for Ascetic practices of the most rigorous kind. Some of the austerities they practiced are mentioned in one Jataka to have been "painful squatting on heels, swinging in the air like bats, reclining on thorns, and scorching themselves with fire fires.lo Again, as first pointed out by Prof. Bühler, they branded the hands of their novice with a heated ball.11 Their doctrine has been admirably cummed up by the Buddha in the words s-atthi kammanh n-atthi kiriyanı n-atthi viriyanti13 They were thus complete fatalino.
The Ajivikas appear to have been in éxistence long before the rise of Buddhism. The most celebrated exponent of their doctrines in the time of the Buddha was Makkhali Gosala. But ho was only the third of their teachers, the two preceding ones being Nanda Vachchba and Kiss Samkichchhs. They seem to have been of some consequence during the Maurya period. The Barabar and Nâgârjanf cave inscriptions's show that these caves had been excavated and dedicated specially to them by Asoka and his grandson Dasaratha. The Ajfvikas are also mentioned in Aboka's Pillar-edict VII, in connection with the religious sects which the Dharma-maha mdtras had been instructed by him to concern themselves with. Then we do not hear of the Ajfvikas till the time of Varahamihira (circa A.D. 525) who, as we have seen above, refers to them in his Brihajjdtaka. An allusion to them also occurs in the Janaki-harana of Kumaradása (A. D. 725). In chap. X, v. 76, Ravaga is represented to have approached $itâ in the guise of an Ajivika monk. Some inscriptions15, found in the Madras, Presidency and belonging to the first half of the thirteenth century, speak of a tax on the Ájivikas which it appears to have been castomary in those days to imposo on them. It is not clear why they were so much looked down upon. Prof. Hultzsch, who has edited the inscriptions, considers them to be Jainas, but specifies no grounds in support of his position. He is probably led to hold this view because he thinks that there is no ovidence to show that the Âjivikas were existing so late as the 13th century. But, as has been recently shown by Prof. Pathak, 16 they were well-known to the Digambara Jaina authors of the later Chalukya and Yadava periods and are mentioned as living chiefly on käinji. They, however, mistook them to be a sect of Buddhist Bhikshas. The Buddhists, in their turn, have mistaken them for Nirgranthas, for the latter have actually been once called Ajtvikas in the Dwydvadána.17 The truth of the matter appears to be that they were neither Buddhists nor Jainas even in the later times, but formed a distinct seot.
· N. VI. .
Jat. I. 990; the reading vachchhaka notioed in the footnote is obviously the correct one, and not machchhaka adopted in the text.
1. Ibid. I. 493; other ascetio praoticon to which they resorted, have been set forth in the Mathima-Nikdy L. 338, and Digha-Nikaya. For the translation of this passage, 16 Rhy Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha, I. 827 .
11 Jat. III. 519.
11 Allguttara-Nikdya, Vol. I, p. 286, o al. BlyDavids' Dialogue of the Buddha, Vol. I, p.71 ff, and Höernlo's Uvdeaga-dasdo, Appendix II. 13 Anto, Vol. XX. Pp. 169 and 884.
Ep Ind. Vol. II, p. 272. 1. South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. 1, pp. 88, 89, 92 and 198. Asto, Vol. ILI, P. 89. "Divydraduna, by Cowell and Nail, p. 347.