Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

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heels indicates that this is not the everyday squatting-on-theheels position, in which the heels are flat on the ground, but that it is the yogic position of utkatasana (one of several that I refer to generically as of the mulabandhasana type), of which the Gheranda Samhita (II.27) says: "Let the heels be raised in the air; place the anus on the heels." The raising of the heels so they join under the anus is essential, and the importance of this seemingly insignificant detail will become clear as we proceed. The practice of ukkutikappadhana, then, or "exerting oneself in the squatting posture," would seem to be the same activity portrayed on the Indus seals, except that the figure on the seals was portrayed with knees fully to the sides.
One of the Jataka references to utkatasana (J.1.493) identifies its practitioners are Ajivikas. The Majhima Nikaya (1.515) agrees by implication, saying that utkatasana is practiced by one who is naked and shaven, and who "plucks out the hairs of his head and beard." Both Jain and Ajivika ascetics went naked and shaved or plucked their heads and beards, but these practices seem to have been adopted by the Jains from the Ajivikas, and it probably the latter to whom the Pali passages refer.
Who Were the Ajivikas?
The Ajivikas were an ascetic group headed in the Buddha's time by Makkhali Gosala. They seem to have been very closely connected with Jainism, and due to the loss of all Ajivika scriptures, we are dependent on the highly sectarian Jain account of the relationship (mostly in the Bhagavati Sutra).
According to the Jain view, Gosala was "an unruly disciple" of Mahavira, who, after following him for six years, broke away over a point of doctrine. 23 Both Barua and Jacobi, however, regard this as a pious fiction of the Jains: the
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