Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c15.s1.7

c15.s1.7

² This teacher was born in Saravaṇa, probably near Sāvatthī or Śrāvasti. Jaina writers represent him as a person of low parentage and of contemptible character. The attitude of Buddhist authors is also not friendly. In reality he was one of the leading sophists of the sixth century B. C., and, for a time, was a close associate of Mahāvīra. According to the Ājīvika belief as expounded in the *Sāmañña phala Sutta* "the attainment of any given condition, of any character, does not depend on human effort (purisa-kāre). There is no such thing as power or energy, or human strength or human vigour (purisaparakkamo). All beings...are bent this way and that by their fate (*niyati*)." (*Dialogues*, Pt. I, p. 71; Barua, *The Ājīvikas*, 1920, p. 9). An *Ajīvaparivrājaka* appears as a court astrologer of Bindusāra in the *Divyāvadāna* (pp. 370 ff.). A tax on "*Ājīvakas*" is referred to in an inscription of the twelfth century A.D. (Hultzsch, SII. I. 88) showing that the sect flourished in S. India even in that late age. See also A. L Basham, *The Ajīvikas*.