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( 101 ) he ought not to take any action against his servant's conduct for the servant was not responsible for it. This convinced Saddälaputta of the falseness of Ajivika doctrines and he was converted to the creed of Mahavira.”
Dr. Barua has collected and reviewed exhaustively all the materials available in Jain and Buddhist texts on the history of Ajivikas and the life and teachings of Gosala, the founder of the Ajivika order. The order did not die with its leader, although it undoubtedly lost its vigour and following to a large extent. The Bhagawati Sūtra gives a detailed description of the meeting between Gosala and Mahavira and of the manner of Gosala’s death.
“The headquarters of the Order was in Savatthi in the shop of the potter womaa Hālāhalā. In the twenty-fourth year of Gosala's ascetic life he was visited by six ascetics with whom he discussed their doctrines and propounded his own theory from the eight Mahanimittas belonging to the Pūrvas consisting of the principles of obtainment and non-obtaining, pleasure and pain, life and death. He met a disciple of Mahavira and notified to him his intention of destroying Mahavira by means of his fiery forces. The threat was conveyed to Mahavira who forbade Nirgrantha ascetics to hold any communication with Gosala. Surrounded by his disciples, Gosala called on Mahavira and angrily ridiculed him for having called Gosala a disciple of Mahavira. “Mankhaliputta who was a disciple of Mahavira" said Gosala “was dead and reborn in the heavens as a god. But I whose name was Udāyi was born in the body of Ajjuna and entered in the seventh · re-animation the body of Gosala, which I still hold." He then went on to narrate in detail the processes of reanimation he had undergone in the bodies of different persons in different places and how in his seventh and last reanimation he obtained omniscience in the body of Gosala in the potter shop of Hālāhalā. Mahavira in reply told him that he was like a thief who being chased
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