Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 453

428
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
[Ch. VII
The account of his birth as given in the BhS is supported by the evidence of the Sumangala-Vilasini1 which agrees with the former in stating that the name 'Gośāla' was attributed to him on the ground of his birth of a slave-girl in a cowshed.* It is recorded there that one day, while walking with an oil pot in his hand on a patch of muddy ground, he stumbled off and fell down, and thus broke it due to his carelessness despite his master's warning, "My dear man, take care lest you stumble, "T'ata-ma-khaliti." So fearing the chastisement from his angry master he ran up, but he was overtaken by his master who caught him by the edge of his garment. Letting his cloth go behind him, he fled away naked to a village the people of which offered him clothes out of kindness. But he refused to put them on, hoping to be honoured as a holy man or naked Arhat.
Thus he was known as Mankkhali the name derived from the last words 'Ma khali' used by his master to take care of the oil pot.
In the Grammar of Paninis there appears Maskarin as a Parivrājaka (Maskara-maskariņau veņu-parivrājakayoḥ) who has been identified with Maskarin Gośala on the following grounds as explained by Patanjali that "A Maskarin Parivrājaka is not so-called, because there is a Maskara (bamboo-staff) in his hand......Do not perform action, but seek peace as the highest end. This is their teaching, who are therefore called Maskarin (Mā kṛita karmāņi mā kṛita karmāņi, śāntirvaḥ śreyasityāhāto Maskarī parivrājakaḥ)."
The evidence of Panini as! supported by the Divyāvadāna where Gośāla Mańkhaliputra appears by the name of Maskari
1 Sumangalavilāsinī (Samaññaphala Sutta) - Buddhaghosa's comm, on the Dighanikaya, II, 3, pp. 143 ff.
2 Ib, II, 3, pp. 143 ff.
3
Panini, iv, 1, 154. Vide 'India as known (to Paṇini,' p. 381. 4 Patanjali Bhāṣya, III, 96.
5 Divyāvadāna-p. 143. See C. D. Chatterjee, 'A. Hist. charac
ter in the Reign of Asoka', Bhandarkar commemoration Vol. p. 331.