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13. JAINISM AND OTHER FAITHS
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regards the practice of plucking out the hair, he says something positively indecent. Then he says that if the carrying of peacock's feathers led to salvation, the horses and the elephants who are decorated with them were bound to obtain it!! Recriminations of this type point to theological hatred, but there is no reason to suppose that there was any deep-seated hostility between the Jainas and the Buddhists. As pointed out by S. C. Vidyabhusan, there was no bitter rivalry between the two communities. According to the same scholar, the Jaina writers Rabhasa Nandi (circa 850 A. D.) and Kalyāṇacandra (about 1000 A. D.) appear to have written commentaries on the Buddhist logician Dharmakirti's Sambandha-pariksa and Pramāna-vārtika, respectively; while the Jaina Mallavādin (about 962 A. D.) wrote a commentary on Nyāya-bindu-tikii of Dharmottara.
The Ajivakas whom Somadeva mentions among the communities to be shunned by the Jainas were an ancient sect founded by Mankhaliputra Gośālaka, a contemporary of Mahāvīra, and the present refere shows that members of this sect were still to be found in the tenth century. The Jainas disliked the Ajivakas, as their founder Gośālaka was a bitter: rival and opponent of Mahāvīra, and the former is, as a matter of fact, represented as something of an impostor in early Jaina literature. Nor were the Ājivakas liked by the Buddhists. Just as Somadeva asks the Jainas to keep aloof from Ajivakas, Buddhists, Nāstikas and others, similarly the Saddharma-pundarika (Chap. XIII) declares that the Bodhisattva never associates with Carakas, Parivrājakas, Ajivakas and Nirgranthas (Jainas ). The Ajivakas had certain peculiar doctrines, e. g. the Niyativāda, an extreme form of fatalism propounded by Gośālaka, and seem to have flourished in South India for centuries after the age of Mahāvīra, as their doctrines are included among the contemporary philosophical systems described in detail in the Tamil epic Manimekhalai, assigned to the early centuries of the Christian era. In another Tamil epic of the same age, the S'ilappadikāram, the father of the heroine Kaņņaki is said to have distributed his wealth among the Ajīvaka friars. “This is a very important
1 hotar laat klagfer af, at Jae fake, macarent Hez left:37, ar gat folettae, feetreut Pere
भोक्ख, ता करिह तुरङ्गह । 2 A History of Indian Logic, pp. 194, 198. 3 See Gupani: Ajivika sect--A new interpretation in Bhāraliya Vidyo, Vol II,
part II. Trans. Kern, p. 263 (S. B. E.). In ancient Buddhist texts the Ajivakas are regarded as the worst of the sophists. 'As the sect is thrice mentioned in the Asoka Edicts as receiving royal gifts, it is certain that it retained un important position for several centuries at least.' Rhys Davids: Dialogues of the Buddha, Part I, p. 71.
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