India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c11.s3.5

c11.s3.5

MASKARIN—Pāṇini mentions *Maskarin* as a *parivrājaka* (VI. 1.154, *Maskara-maskariṇau veṇu-parivrājakayoḥ*). Here Maskarin is taken to be the name of Maskarī Gośāla, the founder of the Ājīvika order and a contemporary of the Buddha. Patañjali enlightens us on this point as follows: 'A Maskarin *parivrājaka* is not so-called because there is a *maskara* (bamboo-staff) in his hand. What else is then the explanation? Do not perform actions, but seek peace as the highest end’. This is their teaching, who are therefore called Maskarins’ (*Mā kṛita karmāṇi mā kṛita karmāṇi, śāntirvaḥ śreyasītyāhāto Maskarī parivrājakaḥ*, *Bhāshya*, III.96). No doubt Patañjali’s reference is to the philosophy of inaction taught by the great teacher Makkhali Gosāla whose identity with Maskarī thus become a certainty. He was a Determinist who ascribed every cause to fate or destiny (*niyati*). He held that the attainment of any given condition or character 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, energy, human strength or vigour. All beings are bent this way and that by their fate. In his system chance (*yadṛichchhā*) has no place, but everything is ordered by an immutable Fate (*Niyati*) (*Dict. of Pāli Proper Names*, II.398). According to Buddhist books Makkhali was considered by the Buddha as the most dangerous of the heretical teachers.