Studies in Jainism

Author(s): Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta

Page 21

12
STUDIES IN JAINISM
royal gifts from the great emperor Asoka, who dedicated two cave-dwellings to the sect. It continued to exist in the Middle Country till the fifth century A.D. Barua traced references to the sect in Varāhamihira's Brhatsarhitā and Bāņa's Harsacarita. In the former, it is mentioned under the name of Ekadandin (one-staff man), while in the latter, under the name of Maskarin. It appears that the sect was patronized by King Dasaratha, the grandson of Asoka, for three cave dedications in the Nāgārjuni Hills were made by him.42 It may be noted that the sect has been referred to in the Mahāvansa (X. 102) as one of the flourishing religions in Ceylon during the reign of King Pandukābhaya (377-307 B.C.).
The sect must have continued in existence in South India till as late as the thirteenth or fourteenth century A.D., the time of the Sivajñanaśittiyār, which furnishes a vivid picture of the sect and its creed. This conclusion has been happily corroborated by references collected by Professor Pathak from the Digambara Jaina works in the Karņāțaka country.43 Though the Jaina works confound the Ajīvikas with the Buddhists, yet they prove beyond doubt that they were well known to the Jaina authors of the late Cālukya and Yādava periods as a sect of the Buddhists who lived on kanji (rice-gruel). 44
IV. AJITA KEŚAKAMBALIN (THE MATERIALISTS) Ajita Kesakambalin is another of the six non-Brāhmaṇic teachers mentioned in the Buddhist and Jaina reco was held in great esteem by the people. He was the earliest representative of Indian Materialism. He was called Kesakambalin, because he put on a blanket of human hair. His metaphysics may be summed up as follows:
A human being is built of the four elements (catummahābhūtiko ayam puriso). When he dies, the earthy in him relapses to earth, the fluid to water, the heat to fire, the windy to air, and his faculties (indriyani, five senses and the mind as the sixth) pass into space (äkāsa). Four men
42. Barua, Ājīvikas, p.70. These Nagarjuni Hills are near Buddha-Gayā. 43. Indian Antiquary (1912), pp.88 f. 44. Cf. Barua, Ājivikas, pp. 77,79.