India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c11.s3.6

c11.s3.6

The identification of Maskarī with the founder of the Ājīvika sect, if accepted as is highly probable, is of the utmost importance for the relative chronology of Pāṇini himself. Another evidence in the *Ashṭādhyāyī* supports Pāṇini’s knowledge of the philosophical school of Makkhali. He refers to three kinds of philosophic beliefs (*mati*), viz. *Āstika*, *Nāstika* and *Daishṭika* (IV.4.60). *Mati* here corresponds to *diṭṭhi* of the Buddhists signifying a philosophic doctrine. The *Āstika* philosophers were those whom the Buddhist books call *Issarakāraṇavādī* or the Theists, who held that everything in the universe traces itself to Īśvara as the supreme cause (*ayaṁ loko issaranimmito*, Mehta, *Pre-Buddhist India*, p. 333). The *Nāstika* philosophers correspond to those who are called *Natthikadiṭṭhi* in Buddhist works (C. D. Chatterji, A Hist. Character in the Reign of Aśoka, *Bhandarkar Com. Vol.*, p. 330). These included the Annihilationist school of another great teacher Ajita Keśakambalī (*ito paralokagatanāma n’atthi, ayaṁ loko ucchijjati*, *Jāt.*, V.239). This was a materialistic doctrine famous as the Lokāyata school. The third category of thinkers who are mentioned as *Daishṭika* by Pāṇini certainly refer to the followers of the determinist philosophy preached by Makkhali Gośāla who repudiated the efficacy of *karma* as a means for improving the lot of human beings.