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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s9: The ascetic movement

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s9

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The ascetic movement

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The ascetics were known under the general name of Śramaṇa. Although the Buddhists alone appropriated this title to themselves in later times, the order of the Śramaṇas originated in the Brahmanical fold. It assumed a distinct shape in the Nanda-Maurya period. Already in the Upanishads there are references to the Brahmacārins and the Yatis besides the sacrificers and the hermits. For the first time in the law books there is mention of a full-fledged order called either Vaikhānasa or Vānaprastha (Gautama, III, 2 ; Āpastamba, III, 9, 21, 1 ; Vasiṣṭha, VII, 2). This is the third among the four orders (āśrama) in which a householder in his ripe old age is required to retire to the forest after leaving the family duties to his son. In this stage he lives like an anchorite, wears the bark of trees, eats fruits and passes his days in higher thoughts. The origin of the Śramaṇas goes back to this order of the Vaikhānasas.

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The Greek writers also give the same account of the Śramaṇas whom they call either Sarmanes or Sramnai. The most respected among them were the Hylobioi (υλοβιοs), ‘the forest-dwellers’. It has been said about them: ‘They live in woods, where they subsist on leaves of trees and wild fruits, and wear garments made from the bark of trees’ (Megasthenes, Frag. XLI, 60). They observed the vow of chastity and abstained from drinking wine. They were so much esteemed that even the kings communicated with them through messengers in order to ascertain the causes of things and to get divine favour. These forest-dwellers were the same as those included in the Vaikhānasa order.

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Besides the Vānaprasthas, the Vasiṣṭha Dharmasūtra (loc. cit.) mentions another order of ascetics called Parivrājaka. In the Buddhist texts they are depicted as wandering teachers who had specialised in ethics, philosophy, nature-lore and mysticism. Their only difference with other forest-dwellers probably consisted in their travelling from place to place and in enlightening the people on various matters concerning religion and philosophy. In the early Buddhist texts there are frequent references to them and to special houses called *paribbājaka-ārāma* provided for them near the towns. The villagers and town-folk also provided them with meeting places called *kotuhalasālās* (Digha, III, pp. 36, ff., Divyāvadāna, p. 143).

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The Greek writers seem to have included them within the class of Sarmanes and philosophers. Speaking of some of the philosophers in one place Megasthenes says : 'To the people of India at large they render great benefits ; when gathered together at the beginning of the year, they forewarn the assembled multitudes about droughts and wet weather, and also about propitious winds, diseases, and other topics capable of profiting the hearers' (Frag. I, 40). The physicians also belonged to the Śramaṇa class. Megasthenes tells us that they were engaged in the study of the nature of man and that they were simple in their habits. They had as their food either rice or barley meal which they would get either by begging or from those who entertained them as guests. They like other Śramaṇas practised asceticism.

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The Greek accounts as well as the Buddhist texts tell us that among the Śramaṇas there were also the diviners, sorcerers, and adepts in the rites and customs relating to the dead. They lived on begging in the villages and towns. Megasthenes informs us that there were also female ascetics in some classes of the Śramaṇas. Such female ascetics are mentioned in the Buddhist texts too. They are referred to as *paribbājikā* and a special class of them as *molibaddhā paribbājikā* who used to go about in the company of male ascetics (Megasthenes Frag. XLI, 60; Majjhima, I, p. 305 ; Samyutta, III. pp. 238-240).

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There is no doubt that the order of the Śramaṇas and Parivrājakas was open to the people of all castes but there is no clear evidence as to whether they used to give up their caste distinctions and obligations after joining that order. Buddha is once decried by a Brahmin not so much for becoming a Śramaṇa but for giving up his caste distinctions and thus becoming a vṛṣala (Vasalasutta, Sutta Nipāta, p. 21). In the Buddhist texts four kinds of Śramaṇas are spoken of according to their religious conduct. They were : Maggajino—those who had reached the end of the way and attained Nirvāṇa, Maggadesako—

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those who show the way to the highest goal, Magge Jivati—those who live according to the way and Maggadusi—those who are vain, talkative, devoid of self-restraint and although wearing the dress of religious men destroy the good name of the line of their own teachers (Cundasutta, Sutta Nipāta, p. 16).

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Closely allied to the general order of the Śramaṇas and Parivrājakas, there were some communities of religious men which claimed their origin from some well-known teachers contemporaneous with Buddha and followed some distinct religious beliefs. They were the sophists or Tirthikas (vādasilā titthiyā), the Ājivikas and the Nigaṇṭhas (cf. Dhammikasutta, Sutta Nipāta, v. 381). The famous Tirthika teachers in the time of Buddha were Pūraṇa Kassapa, Pakudha Kaccāyana, Ajita Keśa-Kambala, Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta, Makkhali Gosāla and Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta. Of the religious orders founded by them only those of the last two teachers had lived up to the Nanda-Maurya period; the followers of the first four teachers had probably merged into the general Śramaṇa order for want of strong leaders. The religious order of Makkhali Gosāla was the Ājivika and that of Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, the Nigaṇṭha (Nirgrantha).

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*The Ajivika and Nirgrantha movements*

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Although the origin of these two religious movements goes back to the times of Buddha, nothing precisely is known about their progress before the Maurya period. The word Makkhali which is used as a part of the name of Gosāla, the founder of the Ājivika order, was probably the name of the order. It corresponds to the Sanskrit word Maskarin. Pāṇini in one of his Sūtras (VI, 1, 154) refers to the Maskarin as a class of parivrājakas who carried a bamboo-staff (maskara) in their hands. They were also styled for this reason Ekadaṇḍin. While commenting on the Sūtra, Patañjali in his Mahābhāsya, refers to their fatalistic belief. The Buddhist and Jain texts too ascribe to them a fatalistic creed and say that they held that there is no cause either ultimate or remote, no reward or retribution, no such thing as power or energy and that all ‘are bent this way or that by their fate, by the necessary conditions of the class to which they belong, by their individual nature’ (Sāmaññaphalasutta, Dialogues of Buddha II, p. 71 where all the references to the principal Buddhist and Jaina texts have been collected).

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The Ājīvikas appear to have attained some importance in the time of Aśoka as the latter mentions them side by side with the Buddhists and Nirgranthas and says that his Mahāmātras had been asked to look after their welfare and progress as well (Pillar edict VII). In the 12th year of his reign, Aśoka made gifts of two caves in the Barābar hills to the Ājīvikas. The order seems to have maintained its importance throughout the Mauryan period as one of the grandsons of Aśoka, Daśaratha, is also known to have dedicated some caves in the Nāgārjuni hills to the Ājivika order.

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The Ājīvikas, as we have already seen, belonged to the Śramaṇa class. Their order had assumed a distinct shape in later times but they must have inherited many of the Śramaṇa traditions. As such they had among them both Brahmin and non-Brahmin recluses but there is no evidence of their having two different orders, Brahminical and non-Brahmanical.

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The Nirgrantha was also a Śramaṇa order closely connected with the Ājivika. The later Jainism which claims descent from this ancient order has foisted many traditions on it but in spite of them, the ancient Nirgrantha order does not seem to have been a religious movement of any considerable importance in the Nanda-Maurya period. We learn from the Buddhist texts that the founder of the Nirgrantha order was Mahāvīra otherwise known as Nātaputta (Jñātṛkaputra) who was called a Nirgrantha because he belonged to that order of Śramaṇas. The name of the order meant ‘those who have destroyed the worldly ties’ and also ‘those who have given up their clothes.’ In the first sense they were pravrajita or the houseless ascetics and in the second sense, the naked ascetics. They were thus the same as the acelakas who are often mentioned in the Buddhist texts. In fact a slightly doubtful fragment of the account of Megasthenes, speaks of a sect of philosophers who used to go naked throughout their life and to say that the body had been given by God as a covering of the soul. They abstained from animal food and all food cooked by fire, being content to live on fruits picked up when they had dropped to the ground (Fragm. LIV). These few points of their doctrines have a good deal of similarity with the doctrines ascribed to the Nigaṇṭhas in the Buddhist texts. They believed in the existence of soul and desisted from killing animals and destroying even plants which according to them were endowed with life. They were besides naked ascetics. We may therefore consider the naked ascetics referred to in the account of Megasthenes as identical with the Nirgranthas. Megasthenes, however, calls them Brahmin and not Śramaṇa. This might have been due to their standing near to the Brahmin philosophers in point of purity of conduct and religious beliefs and distinguishing themselves from the peripatetic monks who were also recruited from the lower classes.

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Except in the Buddhist texts there are not many references to the Nirgranthas in the contemporary literature. In the seventh pillar edict, Aśoka mentions them along with the Ājīvikas and the Buddhists to state that his Mahāmātras were also occupied with their welfare.

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The tradition as embodied in the late Jain books, has, however, a more connected history of the church to present. The Nirgrantha community was confined in the 4th century B. C. to Magadha and the heads of the church were in chronological order Sayambhava, Yaśobhadra, Sambhūtivijaya and Bhadrabāhu. Bhadrabāhu was a contemporary of Chandragupta Maurya and had converted the latter to the Nirgrantha religion. While Bhadrabāhu was the head of the church, a terrible famine broke out in Magadha and it became difficult for the monks to get alms. Bhadrabāhu then decided to leave the country with a part of the community. Accordingly Sthūlabhadra who was the son of Śakaḍāla, the minister of the Nanda king, was appointed head of the Magadhan community. Bhadrabāhu took a part of the community with him to the South where they settled down at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa in Mysore. It is further said that Chandragupta also abdicated the throne at this time and followed his teacher to Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa where he died of voluntary starvation, as prescribed by the Nirgrantha religion. Sthūlabhadra for fear that the ancient traditions might be lost convoked a council of the monks at Pāṭaliputra in which the sacred literature consisting of the 11 Aṅgas and 14 Pūrvas was recited and fixed. Bhadrabāhu returned to Magadha after twelve years, when the famine had passed away, with a section of his followers. He found that the sacred texts collected in the Council of Pāṭaliputra did not contain the authentic traditions of the church and so he turned them down as spurious. The Magadhan monks had in the meantime begun to put on clothes and this practice was also declared by him as contrary to the original teachings of Mahāvīra. This denunciation however did not lead to an immediate schism in the church. The successor of Sthūlabhadra in the Magadhan church was Mahāgiri. He remained in power till the end of the Maurya period. It was in his time that Samprati, the grandson and successor of Aśoka, became a convert to the Nirgrantha faith and tried to imitate his grandfather in the matter of the propagation of the faith which he professed.

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The Kalpasūtra (translation, S.B.E. XXII, pp. 288 ff.) gives a list of the Gaṇas and Sākhās that originated in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. within the Nirgrantha community. According to it, one of the disciples of Bhadrabāhu, named Godāsa founded the Godāsa-gaṇa which divided itself into four Sākhās namely : Tāmraliptika, Koṭivarṣiya, Puṇḍravardhanīya and Dāsīkharbaṭika. The first three are well known names of places in Bengal. The tradition would thus have us believe that the Nirgrantha religion, in the beginning of the 3rd century B.C., had spread to Bengal to such an extent as to lead to the formation of local subsects. The Kalpasūtra further says that Mahāgiri had eight disciples, two of whom, Uttara and Balissaha, founded a Gaṇa named Uttarabalissaha. This Gaṇa also divided itself into four Sākhās namely : Kauśāmbikā, Sautaptikā, Kauṭumbinī and Candanāgarī.

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Another tradition recorded in the Niryukti of the Avaśyaka-sūtra speaks of a certain number of schisms in the Church. The leaders of the schismatic monks are said to have maintained philosophical views different from those taught by Mahāvīra. Three such schisms occurred in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. The first of these was led by one Āṣādhasena who, we are told, carried the doctrine of syādvāda to an impossible extreme and also maintained that there was no difference between accomplished ascetics and gods. The second was led by Aśvamitra who refused to admit the doctrine of kṣaṇika, and the third by Gaṅga who admitted the perception of two sensations simultaneously.

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Confirmation of these traditions is however lacking. Two inscriptions of Śravaṇa Belgola, of course, refer to Bhadrabāhu and Chandragupta but they belong only to the 10th century A. D. Aśoka does not take any special interest in the religion of his grandfather except ordering his officials to look after them as after the Ājīvikas and other religious communities. It should also be remembered that although Aśoka and his grandson make gifts of cave dwellings to the Ājīvikas they do not do anything of the kind to the Nirgranthas. As to the spread of the Nirgrantha religion to Bengal, the Divyāvadāna speaks of their presence in Puṇḍravardhana (North Bengal) in the time of Aśoka but only as parivrājakas and not as members of an organised church. As to the schisms, it may be noted that the established Jaina philosophy does not bear the stamp of the new philosophical doctrines which their leaders are said to have introduced. Besides the doctrine of kṣaṇika, which Aśvamitra is said to have opposed, was not a Jaina doctrine but belonged to Buddhism. Under these circumstances it is impossible to accept the traditional story as historical.

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It therefore appears that the two religious orders, the Ājīvika and Nirgrantha, were still small local communities of Magadha, not powerful enough to demand that protection from the state which Buddhism enjoyed. The Nirgrantha order was even less important than the Ājīvika but it managed to survive the latter up to later times and to rise into greater importance.

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