Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature

Author(s): Amulyachandra Sen
Publisher: Vishwa Bharati Calcutta

Page 20

SCHOOLS AND SECTS IN JAINA LITERATURE
II
him with dishonour after he was dead and proclaim his misdeeds and the Jinahood of Mahävīra. Then he died. The Ājiviya theras closed the door and pretended to carry out Gosāla's last instructions, and then they opened the doors and gave him a funeral according to his original wishes."
The austerities practised by the Ajīviyas are classified into four kinds, viz., severe austerities, fierce austerties, abstention from ghee and other delicacies, and indifference to pleasant and unpleasant food."
It is said in the system of the Ājiviyas that all the living beings are subject to an ungratified desire to enjoy, and hence their earning of livelihood is by killing, cutting, etc.'s
The varieties of the Ājiviya ascetics are these :- those who beg in every second house, those who beg in every third house, those who beg in every fourth house, those who beg in every fifth house, those who beg in every sixth house, those who beg in every seventh house, those who accept lotus-stalks only as alms under certain conditions, those who beg in every house, those who do not beg if there is a flash of lightning, and those who practise penances by entering big earthen vessels.56
The names of the twelve adherents of the Ajiviya doctrine are given as Tāla, Tālapalamba, Uvviha, Samviha, Udaya, Avaviha, Nāmudaya, Namudaya, Anuvālaya, Sarıkhavālaya, Ayambula and Kayaraya. They abstained from cating five kinds of fruit, viz., umbara, vada, bora, satara and pilankhu and are said to have given up eating roots, bulbous roots,
etc. *7
The Sāmaññaphala Sutta of the Buddhists, which contains an account of the doctrines of the six principal teachers contemporary with Buddha, gives an account of Gosāla's teachings from where we get the same denial of the usefulness of effort or manly vigour. "N'atthi atthakāre n'atthi parakāre n'atthi purisakāre ; n'atthi balam n'atthi viriyam, n'atthi purisathāmo, n'atthi purisaparakkamo-the attainment of anything does not depend either on one's own acts or on the acts of another or on human effort ; there is no such thing as power or energy, or human strength or human vigour."-Digha-nikāya, Vol. II, p. 53. Every thing depends on fate, and salvation depends on a long series of births of different kinds.
* Bhag. 15.539-554. 34 Sth.S. 4.2.310. * Bhag. 8.5.330.
** Aup. S. 41. T'or Buddhist evidence cf. Malăvagga 3.12.9 for the last of these classes, and Kassa pa-Sihanāda Sutta for ascetic practices resembling these.
* Bhag. 8.5.990.