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History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11: Chapter III. Makkhali Gosāla and His Predecessors

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11

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Chapter III. Makkhali Gosāla and His Predecessors

Ājīvika Leaders before Makkhali Gosāla

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According to the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* Makkhali Gosāla considered himself to be the twenty-fourth *tīrthaṅkara* of the current *Avasarpiṇī* age.¹ The passage in which this is stated may indeed be a Jaina interpolation, but numerous other indications are to be found both that ascetics referred to as Ājīvikas existed before their greatest leader, Makkhali Gosāla, and that the Ājīvika order preserved recollections of prophets who preceded him. Both in the Buddhist and Jaina texts names are mentioned which apparently refer to his predecessors.

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¹ *Bh. Sū.* xv, *sū.* 554, fol. 679. V. infra, pp. 64, 68.

Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Saṅkicca

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These names are linked with that of Makkhali Gosāla in a stock phrase which, as we have seen,² occurs in various contexts in the Pāli scriptures.

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² V. supra, pp. 19–20.

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Thus in the *Aṅguttara*³ the *bhikkhu* Ānanda is purported to have declared that the heretical leader Pūraṇa Kassapa believed in the Ājīvika theory of the six classes of men (*chaḷābhijātiyo*); according to his classification the highest class, the most white (*paramasukka*), contained only three members, namely Nanda Vaccha, Kisa Saṅkicca, and Makkhali Gosāla. Buddhaghosa apparently plagiarized this passage for his commentary to the reference to the six classes in the *Sāmañña-phala Sutta*,⁴ and added: "They are the purest of all."⁵

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³ *Aṅg.* iii, p. 383.

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⁴ *Sum. Vil.* i, p. 162.

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⁵ *Te kira sabbehi paṇḍaratarā.*

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In the *Majjhima Nikāya* the same names are given by the *nigaṇṭha* Saccaka or Aggivessana as the leaders of his order.⁶ To this Buddhaghosa comments that the three had achieved leadership over the extreme ascetics.⁷

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⁶ *Majjh.* i, p. 238.

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⁷ *Te kira kiliṭṭhatapānaṃ matthakappattā ahesum.* *Papañca Sūdanī* ii, p. 285.

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Again in the *Sandaka Sutta* of the *Majjhima* the three names occur¹ when the ascetic Sandaka, on his conversion by the Buddha, declares them to be the only great leaders² produced by the Ājīvikas.

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¹ *Majjh.* i, p. 524.

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² *Nīlakaṇṭha* (in *J.R.A.S.*) translation “shining lights” (v. supra, p. 19).

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Hoernle³ suggests that Kisa and Nanda were probably Makkhali’s contemporaries. “There were indeed other groups of ascetics of a similarly dubious character who also bore the name of Ājīvikas . . . but they lived apart under separate leaders, the names of two of whom, Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Saṅkicca, are recorded in the Buddhist scriptures.” That in the days of the Buddha more than one school of ascetics was given the title of Ājīvika seems very probable, but that the two teachers Nanda and Kisa were the contemporaries of Makkhali Gosāla cannot be definitely established. If Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Saṅkicca were altogether independent of Makkhali Gosāla, as Hoernle asserts, it is surprising that the three are so frequently mentioned together, when another teacher, Pūraṇa Kassapa, who was certainly revered with Makkhali by the later Ājīvikas,⁴ is referred to as the leader of a separate school. Despite these objections the view of Hoernle is shared by A. S. Gopani.⁵

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³ *J.R.A.S.* 1894, p. 314; v. infra, pp. 80 ff.

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⁴ *Bhāratīya Vidyā* ii, p. 202.

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⁵ *J.D.L.* ii, p. 2.

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Barua,⁶ on the other hand, believes that Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Saṅkicca represent previous leaders of the Ājīvikas. Nanda, he states categorically, was succeeded by Kisa, and Kisa by Makkhali. He is in this respect guilty of some inconsistency, since he proceeds to interpret the seven reanimations of Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta, as described in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*,⁷ as “a genealogical succession of seven Ājīvika leaders”, concluding with Gosāla. In maintaining the priority in time of Nanda and Kisa to Makkhali he supports Jacobi, who first put the view forward.⁸

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⁶ *V. infra*, pp. 30 ff.

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⁷ *Introduction to Gaina Sūtras* ii; *SBE.* xlv, p. xxxi.

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Barua’s arguments for elevating Nanda and Kisa to the status of earlier *tīrthaṅkaras* of the Ājīvika order are by no means conclusive. They are based on two *Jātaka* stories in which the chief characters bear names suggesting those of the two hypothetical Ājīvika *arhants*.

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In the first of these, *Sarabhaṅga Jātaka*,¹ the Bodhisatta is born as Sarabhaṅga, also referred to as Jotipāla and Kondañña. He is a famous hermit in the Kavittha forest, on the banks of the Godhāvarī. Among his chief pupils is one Kisa Vaccha, whose name appears to be a telescoped version of those of the two Ājīvika *arhants*. Kisa is said to have left the hermitage with the permission of his teacher, and to have moved to the city of Kumbhavatī, whose king was Daṇḍaki. Here he obtained the reputation of a scapegoat (*kālakanni*), who would remove ill-luck when spat upon, and as a result was shamed and insulted by the populace. After some time he was recalled by his teacher Sarabhaṅga, and the King and his kingdom were destroyed by the gods in punishment for the ignominies borne by the saint. Soon after this Kisa Vaccha is said to have died; innumerable ascetics attended his cremation, and the ceremony was marked by a rain of heavenly flowers.

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¹ *Jāt.* v, pp. 125 ff.

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A second *Jātaka*² tells of the ascetic Saṅkicca, another incarnation of the Bodhisatta. He is the son of the chief brāhmaṇa of Brahmadatta, the semi-legendary and ubiquitous King of Benares, and is represented as converting a regicide prince by a long description of purgatory. Among the inhabitants of the nether world he mentions King Daṇḍaki, who is suffering there on account of his subjects' persecution of the passionless (*araja*) Vaccha Kisa.

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² *Jāt.* v, pp. 261 ff.

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Barua does not value too highly the evidence of the similarity of the names of these two ascetics and those of the Ājīvika leaders. After summarizing the references above quoted he admits that " by no stretch of the imagination can Kisa Vaccha be transformed into Nanda Vaccha . . . . There is no other ground to justify the identification of Kisa Vaccha with Nanda Vaccha or of Saṅkicca with Kisa Saṅkicca than the fact that the views of Sarabhaṅga . . . bear *a priori*, like those of the hermit Saṅkicca, a close resemblance to the ethical teaching of Makkhali Gosāla at whose hands the Ājīvika religion attained a philosophical character ".³

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³ *JDL.* ii, p. 4.

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It is difficult to trace on what Barua bases his last assertion. Sarabhaṅga is an ascetic of the typical *Jātaka* type, with no distinctive ethical views, while the only special characteristic of Saṅkicca is the possession of a lively sense of the reality of the infernal regions, and of the torments experienced there by sinners. There seems no reason to believe that Makkhali Gosāla made the fear of hell a special feature of his doctrine.

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Despite Dr. Barua’s doubts it is perhaps legitimate to conclude that Kisa Vaccha, or Vaccha Kisa, was a hermit, long dead in the Buddha’s day, around whom a body of legend had grown. His fame is made clear by another *Jātaka* reference,¹ wherein he is mentioned as an inhabitant of Brahmaloka, among an exalted company of *ṛṣis*, including such famous sages as Aṅgiras and Kaśyapa. A second ascetic, Saṅkicca, seems to have been connected in the folk memory with Kisa Vaccha. As Barua points out,² Saṅkicca was thought to have been posterior in time to Kisa Vaccha, for in the *Jātaka* reference he is described as mentioning the latter. The two ascetics were perhaps looked upon with reverence by the early Ājīvikas and the Buddhists alike, and the popular floating traditions about them adapted to the needs of the respective sects. In the course of the adaptation the names seem to have been confused.

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¹ *Jāt.* vi, p. 99.

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² *JDL.* ii, p. 3.

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The reference to Kondañña, as the family name of the teacher Sarabhaṅga or Jotipāla, the preceptor of Kisa Vaccha, suggests Udāī Kuṇḍiyāyaṇīya, the first of the strange series of reanimations quoted in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*.³ Perhaps we have here another garbled version of an Ājīvika tradition going back to one Kauṇḍinya, but the theory rests on such a slender basis that much importance cannot be attached to it.

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³ V. infra, p. 31.

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It seems clear, however, that the Ājīvikas, like the Buddhists and the Jainas, had a tradition of earlier teachers who had spread the true doctrine in the distant past; and, like those of the Buddhists and Jainas, these traditions may have contained a small kernel of historical truth.

The Immediate Predecessors of Makkhali Gosāla

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In the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*⁴ Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta, as the Ājīvika leader is called by the Jainas, is said to have made a remarkable statement, which perhaps indicates the existence of a line of Ājīvika teachers whose spiritual mantle had fallen upon his shoulders.

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⁴ *Bh. Sū.* xv, *sū.* 550, fol. 674.

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It is stated that Gosāla and Mahāvīra, after the ending of their collaboration in asceticism, were parted for sixteen years, during which the former gained a high reputation for his sanctity, and gathered a large following in the city of Sāvatthi. At the end of this period Mahāvīra visited the city, and denounced his former colleague as a charlatan; whereupon Gosāla, surrounded by his followers, proceeded to the *caitya* where Mahāvīra was staying, and angrily declared that he was not the Gosāla who had been Mahāvīra’s associate, but that the original Gosāla was dead, and that the soul now inhabiting the apparent Gosāla was that of Udāī Kuṇḍiyāyaṇīya, which had passed through seven bodies in succession, finally taking up its abode in that of the dead Gosāla, which it had reanimated. He declared further that his soul had travelled through all the eighty-four lakhs of great *kalpas*, which must necessarily elapse before it could end its journey, and had occupied all forms of body in determined order. It had attained its final birth as Udāī, an auspicious and beautiful infant; at an early age Udāī had become an ascetic; and the soul nearing perfection had passed from one body to another as the soul which had been the original occupant of that body had been separated from it by death.

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These reanimations Gosāla endowed with the technical title of *paüṭṭa-parihāra* (abandonments of transmigration), and declared that such a series of reanimations was the fated lot of every soul in the final stages of its rigidly determined passage through *saṃsāra*. At the moment, however, we are not concerned with reanimation as a point of doctrine, but with its significance historically. The *Sūtra* quotes with remarkable circumstantial detail the names of the previous occupants of the seven bodies inhabited in turn by the soul of Udāī, together with the length of time during which they were thus inhabited, and the place at which the soul transferred itself from one body to another. According to the text the soul of Udāī passed from body to body as follows:—

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(1) Eṇejjaga (Skt. Ṛṇañjaya), outside Rāyagiha, at the Maṇḍiyakucchi *caitya*; the soul remained incarnate in Eṇejjaga’s body for twenty-two years.

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(2) Mallarāma, at the Candoyaraṇa caitya outside Uddaṇḍapura, for twenty-one years.

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(3) Maṇḍiya, at the Aṅgamaṇḍira caitya outside Campā, for twenty years.

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(4) Roha, at the Kāmamahāvaṇa caitya outside Vāṇārasī, for nineteen years.

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(5) Bhāraddāi, at the Pattakālagaya caitya outside Ālabhiyā, for eighteen years.

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(6) Ajjuṇa Goyamaputta, at the Koṇḍiyāyaṇa caitya outside Vesālī, for seventeen years.

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(7) Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta, at Hālāhalā’s pottery at Sāvatthī, for sixteen years.

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This fantastic catalogue has been interpreted by Hoernle ¹ as an effort on the part of Gosāla to live down his past connection with Mahāvīra. For Barua “the only legitimate inference to be drawn . . .” is that “in this . . . enumeration . . . there is preserved a genealogical succession of seven Ājīvika leaders, together with a list of . . . successive geographical centres of their activities . . . ” ²

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¹ ERE. i, p. 263.

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² JDL. ii, p. 5.

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It is not easy to accept Barua’s theory without question. If the list is actually that of a succession of ascetic teachers, leaders of the same order, it is surprising that each one makes his headquarters in a different town. The progressive diminution by one year of the period of each reanimation also gives strong ground for suspicion that the scheme is artificial. Even if we admit that the list may represent a succession of seven teachers (or eight, if Udāī, the originator of the process, be included), little reliance may be placed on the total of 117 years between the commencement of the ministry of Eṇejjaga and that of Gosāla.

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Two disorderly features of the list suggest, however, that it is not wholly a monkish fiction. The immediate predecessor of Gosāla, Ajjuṇa Goyamaputta, is distinguished by a gotra name or patronymic, as is Udāī Kuṇḍiyāyaṇīya, in whose body the migrant soul was originally born; but the other five names are given without patronymics. This fact suggests that Ajjuṇa was a real person, the period of whose life overlapped with that of Gosāla, and whose name was well known to his contemporaries. The others, on the other hand, seem to have been earlier and more shadowy figures, whose family names had been forgotten. The fame of the original Udāī, the first of the line, may have been such that his *gotra* name survived over several generations. Had the list been completely artificial it might be expected that all the names would have received *gotra* titles.

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The six predecessors of Gosāla are reported to have lived and taught at named *caityas* outside various cities of the Ganges basin. Gosāla, on the other hand, made his headquarters in the workshop of a potter woman. Had the list been a mere fiction, invented by an Ājīvika theologian to add dignity to his master's life-story, the residences of the six earlier reanimations would surely have been of the same type as that of the last. Consistency might also have been expected if the list had been the slanderous creation of a Jaina author.

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These two marked inconsistencies in the list point in favour of its reliability. The names are probably those of a succession of teachers from whom Gosāla obtained some elements of his doctrine. Less reliance can be placed on the names of the *caityas* and cities, which change with an automatic regularity and never repeat themselves. The periods given for the successive ministeries of the seven teachers seem certainly false, with the exception of the sixteen years attributed to Gosāla. This may represent an accurate tradition, on the basis of which the ministeries of his six predecessors were arrived at by the mechanical addition of one year each.

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References in Buddhist or Hindu texts to confirm the historicity of these names are not to be found. Numerous seers and teachers of the Bhāradvāja *gotra* are referred to in the Pāli and later Vedic texts, but there is no reason to believe that the Bhāraddāī of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* represents any one of them. Ālabhiyā, the city near which he is said to have resided, is not mentioned in Sanskrit literature, but is thought by Hoernle¹ to be identical with the town of Ālavi mentioned in the Pāli scriptures, and identified by Cunningham with the modern Newal, nineteen miles south-east of Kanauj. For the names prior to that of Bhāraddāī no counterparts can be found, but a possible connection with Gosāla’s immediate predecessor, Ajjuṇa Goyamaputta, occurs in the *Lalitavistara*.¹ Here the preceptor of the future Buddha during his youth at Kapilavastu is Arjuna, a great master of mathematics. As a Śākyan this teacher would belong to the Gautama *gotra*,² and his generation, according to the Buddhist tradition, was that immediately preceding the Buddha’s, and therefore also that of Makkhali Gosāla. An interest in number and a tendency to classify numerically is clearly to be found in Gosāla’s teaching as described in the *Sāmañña-phala Sutta* and in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*. It is not intrinsically impossible that the Śākyan mathematician became in his later life a wandering ascetic, teaching in the neighbourhood of Vesālī, where he came in contact with the young Gosāla, and strongly influenced his views.

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¹ *Uv. Das.*, ii, app. iii, pp. 51-3.

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¹ Ed. Lefmann, p. 146.

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² V. Malalasekera, *DPPN*., s.v. Gotama.

Makkhali Gosāla

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The teacher to whom the later Ājīvikas looked back with the greatest respect, and whom earlier investigators have considered to be the sole founder of the Ājīvika order, was Makkhali Gosāla. The name appears thus in the Pāli canon. In Buddhist Sanskrit works it usually becomes Maskarin Gośāla, but the *Mahāvastu* and some other texts have the forms Gośālikāputra,³ and Gośāliputra.⁴ The Jaina scriptures reverse the two names and refer to the Ājīvika teacher as Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta, while the Tamil sources give his name as Maṛkali. No references to him can be found in Hindu Sanskrit literature, with the doubtful exception of a shadowy figure in the *Mahābhārata* called Maṅki,⁵ who may represent a corrupt and distorted recollection of the historical Makkhali or Maṅkhaliputta.

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³ Ed. Senart i, pp. 253, 256.

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⁴ Ibid., iii, p. 383.

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⁵ V. infra. pp. 38-39.

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The most valuable source for the reconstruction of the story of his life and works is the Jaina *Bhagavatī Sūtra*, the fifteenth section of which gives a lengthy description of his breach with Māhāvīra and the circumstances of his death.

Birth of Makkhali Gosāla

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Two stories of the origin of the Ājīvika leader are to be found, the one in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*, and the other in Buddhaghosa’s commentary to the *Sāmañña-phala Sutta*. Neither is worthy of unqualified credence, but both are of importance, if only for the evidence they give of the dislike and scorn which was felt by both Buddhist and Jaina for the Ājīvikas and their founder.

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In the Jaina text¹ Mahāvīra is represented as declaring to his disciple Indabhūī Goyama the birth and parentage of Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta. His father, according to Mahāvīra, was a *maṅkha* named Maṅkhali, and his mother’s name was Bhaddā.² The word *maṅkha* is interpreted by the commentator Abhayadeva as a type of ascetic “whose hand is kept busy by a picture board”.³ Hoernle declares that “the . . . word . . . has not been found anywhere but in the passage of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* which adduces it as the source of the name Maṅkhali, and it is presumably an invention *ad hoc*”.⁴ Whatever the meaning of the word, this is certainly not the case. In the standard description of prosperous cities, used throughout the Ardha-māgadhī scriptures, the word *maṅkha* is to be found.⁵ Hemacandra, in his commentary on the *Abhidhāna-cintāmaṇi*, equates it with *māgadha*, a bard.⁶ It is not impossible that the *maṅkha* filled both the functions of an exhibitor of religious pictures, and a singer of religious songs. That such mendicants existed in Ancient India is proved by Viśākhadatta’s *Mudrārākṣasa*, one of the minor characters of which is a spurious religious mendicant described as a “spy with a Yama-cloth” (*yama-paṭena caraḥ*), that is one carrying a picture of the god Yama painted upon a cloth. He habitually enters the houses of his patrons, where he displays his Yama-cloth, and sings songs, presumably of a religious type.⁷

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¹ Bh. Sū. xv, sū. 540, fol. 659 f.

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² Ratna-Prabha Vijaya (*Śramaṇa Bhagavān Mahāvīra*, vol. ii, pt. i, pp. 373 ff.) gives a long paraphrase of a Jaina account of the life of Maṅkhali, the father of Gosāla. The story is evidently fictitious, and the author does not quote his source.

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³ *Citraphalaka-vyagrakaro bhikṣāka-viśeṣaḥ*. Op. cit., fol. 660.

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⁴ *ERE.* i, p. 260.

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⁵ V. *Antagaḍa Dasāo*, tr. Barnett, p. 2, n. 3, and many references in Ratnacandrajī *Ardha-māgadhī Dictionary*, s.v. *maṅkha*.

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⁶ *Abhidhāna-cintāmaṇi*, comm. to v. 795, p. 365 (Böhtlinck and Rieu edn.).

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⁷ *Jāva evaṃ gehaṃ pavisīā jama-paḍaṃ damsaānto gāāṃ gāāmi*. *Mudrārākṣasa* i, 17, ed. Karmarkar, p. 14. V. also p. 20 of the same text.

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Moreover the word seems to have been used in Kashmīr as a proper name, and two Maṅkhas appear in the *Rājatarangiṇī*,¹ the second being a poet well known to students of later Sanskrit literature. Thus there is no justification for Hoernle’s contention that the word is meaningless. This point has been recognized by Charpentier, who, on the strength of a *sūtra* of Pāṇini, admits the possibility that Gosāla’s father was a mendicant bearing a picture board displaying a representation of the god Śiva.²

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¹ *Rājatarangiṇī* viii, 969, 995, 3354.

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² *JRAS.* 1913, pp. 671–2.

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The details of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*’s account of Gosāla’s birth, while not intrinsically impossible, seem to have been constructed in order to provide an etymology for his personal name. While Bhaddā was pregnant, she and her husband Maṅkhali the *maṅkha* came to the village (*sannivesa*) of Saravaṇa, where dwelt a wealthy householder Gobahula. Maṅkhali left his wife and his luggage (*bhaṇḍa*) in Gobahula’s cowshed (*gosālā*), and tried to find accommodation in the village. Since he could find no shelter elsewhere the couple continued to live in a corner of the cowshed, and it was there that Bhaddā gave birth to her child. His parents decided to call him Gosāla, after the place of his birth.

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No great value can be attached to the details of this story. The account of Gosāla’s parentage and birth fits too closely to his name and patronymic to allow unqualified credence. His mother, Bhaddā, has a name used in the Jaina texts to designate the mother of many mythological figures,³ which in this context seems devoid of all historical significance. In some respects the story recalls that of the birth of Jesus, as recorded in Saint Luke’s gospel, and should therefore be of some interest to the student of comparative religion and mythology. Historically it is almost valueless.

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³ V. Ratnacandrajī, *Ardha-māgadhī Dictionary*, s.v. *Bhaddā*.

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Mahāvīra is reported to have told this story with the avowed intention of bringing Gosāla’s reputation into disrepute. This being the case it is improbable that the legend represents an authentic Ājīvika tradition about the birth of their leader. Both Buddhist and Jaina hagiologists provided exalted origins for the founders of their respective sects, and it is likely that the Ājīvikas did the same for Gosāla. The one feature in the story which may be authentic is the name of the village of Gosāla’s birth, Saravaṇa. In this connection it is to be noted that he is not the only figure in Indian legend to have been born in a śaravaṇa, or thicket of reeds. Gosāla shares that honour with the god Kārttikeya, who is sometimes referred to by the epithets śaravaṇa-bhava,¹ and śaravan’-ôdbhava.² Is it possible that the Ājīvikas taught that their teacher was born or found, not in a village called Saravaṇa, which as a place-name is not to be found elsewhere, but in a thicket of reeds? The Moses-in-the-bullrushes theme is to be found elsewhere in Indian legend, notably in the story of the hero Karṇa.³

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¹ Meghadūta, 45.

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² Mbh. iii, 14635 (Calcutta edn., 1835. The verse does not occur in the Poona edn.).

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³ Mbh. Adi. 111, 13–14.

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About Gosāla’s early life, before his meeting with Mahāvīra, the Bhagavatī Sūtra tells us only that he maintained himself by the profession of a maṅkha, with a picture-board in his hand.⁴ A further tale is provided by Buddhaghosa, in his commentary to the Sāmañña-phala Sutta.⁵ He agrees with the Bhagavatī in stating that Gosāla acquired his name on account of his birth in a cowshed, and further states that Gosāla was a slave who, while walking over a patch of muddy ground carrying a pot of oil, was hailed by his master with the words “don’t stumble, old fellow!” (tāta mā khal’ îti). Despite the warning he carelessly tripped and spilt the oil. Fearing his master’s anger he made off, but his master pursued and overtook him, catching him by the edge of his robe (dāsakaṇṇa). Leaving his garment behind him Gosāla escaped in a state of nudity. Hence he became a naked mendicant, and acquired the name of Makkhali from the last words, “Mā khali,” spoken to him by his master.

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⁴ Cittaphalaga-hatthagaē maṅkhattanēnaṃ appāṇaṃ bhāvemāṇe viharati. Bh. Sū. xv, sū. 540, fol. 660.

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⁵ Sum. Vil. i, pp. 143–4.

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This story is a patent fiction constructed, probably by Buddhaghosa himself, to provide an etymology for the names of the Ājīvika leader, to account for his nudity, and to pour scorn on his order by attributing to him a servile origin. It is even less credible than the Jaina account, especially if read in connection with a similar story told by Buddhaghosa about Pūraṇa Kassapa, to whom a servile origin is also attributed, and for whose name a similar fantastic etymology is devised.¹

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¹ *Sum. Vil.* i, p. 142. V. infra, pp. 82–83.

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Hoernle, without explicitly accepting either story, suggests that a kernel of truth may be extracted from them. He writes: "the two accounts . . . are quite independent of each other . . . All the more valuable are the two accounts, both in respect of the points in which they agree and in which they differ. They agree on two points: first, that Gosāla was born of low parentage in a cowshed . . . and secondly, that (his profession) . . . was not sincere, but adopted merely for the sake of getting an idle living."² In our opinion the correspondences are less striking than the differences, and prove nothing. The provision of fanciful etymologies for proper names was a common practice in Ancient India, and many other examples are to be found. The name Gosāla would inevitably suggest birth in a cowshed to the ancient etymologist. Both Buddhist and Jaina opposed the Ājīvikas, and it is not surprising that both tried to establish Gosāla’s base lineage and insincerity. The fact is that neither story belongs to the Ājīvika tradition, and even if that tradition could be re-established we should still be far from the true story of the birth and early life of Makkhali Gosāla. The Jaina story is of the nature of an exposure, and the Buddhist is obviously created *ad hoc*. Both clearly show the intense *odium theologicum* which almost invariably attached itself to the Ājīvikas and to their founder. We can only admit that the Jaina account is not inherently impossible. It may be that Gosāla was born at a village called Saravaṇa of mendicant parents; even the story of his birth in a cowshed may be based on fact. But the evidence with which to establish this with any degree of certainty is lacking.

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² *ERE.* i, p. 260.

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It is just possible that a very garbled and corrupt reference to Makkhali Gosāla is to be found in the *Mahābhārata*.³ Among the episodes of the *Śānti Parvan* is the story of one Maṅki, who, after repeated failures in all his ventures, purchased a couple of young bulls with the last of his resources. One day the bulls broke loose, and were both killed by a camel. Maṅki thereupon uttered a long chant on the power of destiny, and the advisability of desirelessness and inactivity. The *adhyāya* concludes with the statement that, in consequence of the loss of his two bulls, Maṅki cast off all desires and attained immortality.

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³ *Mbh.*, *Śānti*, 176, v. 5 ff. (Kumbhakonam edn.).

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The hymn of Maṅki contains Sāṅkhya *guṇa* teaching, and perhaps shows Buddhist influence also, but of the varied influences which it betrays that of Ājīvikism seems most prominent.¹ The name of the hero of the story may well be an anomalous corruption of the Prākrit Maṅkhali or of the Pāli Makkhali. These facts suggest that we have here a garbled reference to the leader of the Ājīvikas. The strange story of the two bulls is possibly a very confused version of a legend about their teacher which was current among the Ājīvikas themselves.

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¹ V. infra, p. 218.

The Meeting of Gosāla with Mahāvīra

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In the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* the story of Gosāla’s association with Mahāvīra is put into the mouth of Mahāvīra himself, as a continuation of his exposure of his rival, and it is narrated with much circumstantial detail.² In the third year of his asceticism Mahāvīra had taken up temporary quarters in a corner of a weaving-shed (*tantuvāya-śālā*) at Nālandā, near Rāyagiha. Thither came Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta, and, finding no other accommodation, took shelter in the same shed. On completing a month’s fast, Mahāvīra went to Rāyagiha (Skt. Rājagṛha) to beg his food. There he and his patron Vijaya were greeted by a miraculous rain of flowers, and by other auspicious omens, amid the acclamations of the citizens. Hearing of these great events Gosāla waited outside Vijaya’s house until Mahāvīra emerged, circumambulated him three times, and begged to become his pupil in asceticism. Mahāvīra gave him no answer, but returned to the weaving shed, where he performed a further month’s fast, after which the same phenomena were repeated, with a different patron. The miracles occurred again, after a third fast. At the conclusion of a fourth month’s penance Mahāvīra visited a brāhmaṇa named Bahula, at Kollāga, a village near Nālandā.

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² *Bh. Sū.*, xv, sū. 541, fol. 660-3.

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On finding that Mahāvīra had left the weaving-shed Gosāla searched for him high and low in Rāyagiha. Unable to find him, he returned to the weaving-shed, where he stripped off his upper and lower garments, and gave them, with his waterpots, slippers, and picture-board, to a brāhmaṇa.¹ He then shaved his hair and beard and went away. As he passed Kollāga he heard the cheering of a crowd, and concluded that it was applauding Mahāvīra. So he made a further search, and found Mahāvīra at Paṇiyabhūmī, outside Kollāga. He once more begged Mahāvīra to accept him as a disciple. This time his request was granted, and for six years after the meeting at Paṇiyabhūmī the two shared the hardships and joys of the ascetic life.²

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¹ Sāḍiyāo ya pāḍiyāo ya kuṇḍiyāo ya pāhaṇāo ya cittaphalagaṃ ca māhaṇe āyāmettā. Op. cit., fol. 662.

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² Bh. Sū., xv, sū. 541, fol. 663.

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The story so far, if deprived of its supernatural incidents, is not incredible, and, with Hoernle, we may believe that it is essentially true. The Pāli texts refer to all six heretical teachers together in such a manner as to suggest that their relations were by no means always mutually antagonistic,³ and numerous points of similarity in Jaina and Ājīvika doctrine and practice suggest the early interaction of the two teachings. But the account of the circumstances of the meeting seems by no means reliable. The earnest entreaties of Gosāla and Mahāvīra’s steadfast refusal to accept him as a disciple are just such elements as would be introduced into the story by an author wishing to stress the inferiority of Ājīvikism to Jainism and of Gosāla to Mahāvīra. Therefore we believe that the text is not to be trusted when it states that the former was formally a disciple of the latter.

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³ E.g. at the great miracle contest at Sāvatthi. V. infra, pp. 84 ff.

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The reference to Paṇiyabhūmī in the text of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* has given some trouble to the medieval commentator Abhayadeva, and to both Hoernle and Barua. Abhayadeva was in doubt whether the word in the text⁴ should be taken as in the ablative or the locative.⁵ Hoernle⁶ found difficulty in accepting the ablative, which would involve an unusual construction, but recognized that the locative interpretation implied an unresolved anomaly, since the *Kalpa Sūtra* states that Mahāvīra spent only one rainy season in Paṇiyabhūmī.¹ Barua,² ignoring the clear statement of the *Bhagavatī* that Paṇiyabhūmī was near Kollāga, which was a settlement near Nālandā,³ located it in Vajrabhūmi, on the strength of Vinayavijaya’s commentary to the relevant passage of the *Kalpa Sūtra*.⁴ The *Ācārāṅga Sūtra* states that Mahāvīra did in fact visit Vajjabhūmī, which the commentator Śīlāṅka describes as a district of Lāḍha, or Western Bengal.⁵

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⁴ Aham . . . Gosāleṇaṃ . . . saddhiṃ Paṇiyabhūmīe chavvāsāim viharitthā. Bh. Sū. xv, sū. 541, fol. 663.

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⁵ Paṇiyabhūmīe tti Paṇitabhūmer ārabhya, praṇitabhūmau vā—mano-jñabhūmau vihrtavān iti yogaḥ. Op. cit., fol. 664.

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⁶ Uv. Das., vol. ii, p. 111, n.

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¹ *Sū.* 122, ad loc. cit. 64.

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² .

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³ .

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⁴ To *sū.* 122, Bombay edn., fol. 187.

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⁵ *Ācārāṅga* i, 9.3.2, fol. 301-2 (Bombay edn.): in Jacobi’s edn. and *SBE*. xxvi, i, 8, 3, 2.

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It seems probable that the crucial passage in the *Bhagavatī* must be interpreted to mean that Gosāla and Mahāvīra spent six years together after their meeting at Paṇiyabhūmī, and not that the six years were spent at that place. The weight of Jaina tradition suggests that Mahāvīra was a wanderer and that, except during the rainy seasons, he frequently changed the scene of his activities. This tradition is confirmed by Jinadāsa Gaṇi’s *cūrṇi* to the *Āvaśyaka Sūtra*, which purports to give a complete itinerary of the journeys of Mahāvīra and Gosāla during the six years in question. Although this source, which is considered below, is no earlier than the seventh century A.D.,⁶ and must be treated very cautiously, it strengthens the traditions of the *Ācārāṅga* and *Kalpa Sūtras* that the six years were mainly spent in wandering.

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⁶ Schubring, *Die Lehre der Jainas*, p. 60.

The Peregrinations of the Two Ascetics

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Jinadāsa’s *cūrṇi* to the *Āvaśyaka Sūtra* contains a full account of Mahāvīra’s early career, in the course of which are described the journeys which he made in the company of Gosāla. The author repeats the account of Gosāla’s birth and early life, as given in the *Bhagavatī*.⁷ He tells the story of the meeting of the two ascetics, and adds a significant incident which is said to have taken place just before Mahāvīra’s final acceptance of Gosāla as his associate.¹ Gosāla, about to go on a begging expedition, asked Mahāvīra what alms he would receive that day. The latter ² replied that, besides the usual alms of food, he would be given a counterfeit coin. The prophecy was fulfilled, and thus Gosāla decided that what was to be could not be otherwise.³

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⁷ V. supra, pp. 35-36.

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¹ *Avaśyaka Sūtra* (Ratlam edn.), vol. i, p. 282.

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² Or rather, according to Jinadāsa, the *Vyantara* god Siddhatthaka, who seems to have employed the meditating Mahāvīra as a medium on several occasions when he was addressed by Gosāla.

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³ *Jahā bhavitavvam ṇa taṃ bhavaī annahā*. Op. cit., p. 283.

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After the two ascetics had departed together a further prophecy of Mahāvīra’s greatly increased his belief in the power of *Niyati*. This was made at a village called Suvaṇṇakhalaya, and concerned the breaking of a pot of milk, the property of certain cowherds. Gosāla is said to have done his utmost to prevent the fulfilment of the prophecy.⁴

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⁴ Ibid., loc. cit.

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Then the two proceeded to Bambhaṇagāma, where Gosāla cursed the house of Uvaṇanda, a village headman, who refused him alms. His words, “If my master has any ascetic power may this house burn!” were fulfilled immediately, not by virtue of his own asceticism, but by *devas*, desirous of vindicating Mahāvīra’s fame.⁵

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⁵ Ibid., pp. 283–4.

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The third rainy season of Mahāvīra’s asceticism was spent at Campā in severe penance. After this the two visited a settlement called Kālāya, where they sheltered for the night in an empty house which was resorted to by two lovers. In the darkness the ascetics were not detected, until Gosāla’s prurience betrayed him, and he was soundly beaten by the man. A similar incident occurred at another village called Pattakālaya.⁶

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⁶ Ibid., pp. 284–5.

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At a settlement called Kumāraya Gosāla was involved in an altercation with a group of ascetic followers of Pārśva. He tried to destroy their settlement by the same process as that which he had employed on the house of Uvaṇanda, but the superior virtue of the proto-Jaina ascetics prevented his curse from taking effect.⁷ At another settlement called Coraga the two were suspected of being hostile spies and were thrown into a well, but were recognized by two female followers of Pārśva, and were released. The second rainy season of their association was spent at Piṭṭhicampā.¹

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⁷ Ibid., pp. 285–6.

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¹ Ibid., pp. 286-7.

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Thence the two proceeded to Kaṭaṅgala, and stopped in the meeting house of a settlement of *daridda-theras*, householder ascetics, with wives and families. It was a night of festival, during which the *theras* gathered for religious singing in their meeting house. The puritanical Gosāla roundly reproached them for their lax habits, and was thrown out into the cold of the winter night. Latecomers to the festival, sympathizing with his plight, brought him back into the hall, only for the process to be repeated twice more. At last the ascetics gave up attempting to exclude their censorious guest, and decided to put up with him for the sake of Mahāvīra, and to drown his protests with their drums.²

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² Ibid., p. 287.

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Outside the city of Sāvatthi Gosāla once more asked Mahāvīra to forecast the results of the day's begging expedition, and was told that he would receive human flesh. In the city a woman who had recently lost her child had been told by a fortune-teller that her next child would live if she gave some of the flesh of her dead child, mixed with rice, to a mendicant. Gosāla happened to be passing at the time, and received and ate the alms without knowing that they contained the human flesh prophesied by Mahāvīra. When he returned Mahāvīra asked him to vomit, and he realized that the prophecy had been fulfilled. As he could not again find the woman's house, in his anger he cursed the whole district by the same formula as before, and it was burnt to the ground.³

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³ Ibid., pp. 287-8.

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Near the village of Haledutā the ascetics spent the night in meditation under a tall tree. Merchants camping nearby started a fire, which spread through the undergrowth and approached their resting place. Shouting to Mahāvīra to follow him, Gosāla retreated, but the imperturbable Mahāvīra held his ground, although his feet were scorched by the flames.⁴

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⁴ Ibid., p. 288.

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At the village of Maṅgala the two rested in the temple of Vāsudeva. Gosāla was irritated by the village children playing in the temple precincts, and angrily chased them away. For this display of bad temper he received a beating from the villagers.

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A similar incident occurred in the temple of Baladeva at the village of Āvattā.¹

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¹ Ibid., p. 289.

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At a place called Corāya Gosāla, begging alone, was lured by the rich food which was being prepared for a festival. He was seen lurking in the vicinity of the festival pavilion, and was thought to be a spy sent by brigands. This resulted in another beating, after which Gosāla cursed the pavilion, which was promptly burnt to the ground.²

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² Ibid., p. 290.

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At Lambuya the ascetics were seized by one of the village headmen, but were recognized and released. Thence they proceeded to Lāḍha (W. Bengal), called in the text a non-Āryan country. Here at the village of Punnakalasā they were attacked by two robbers, and were only saved by the intervention of the god Sakka, who killed their assailants. The fifth rainy season of Mahāvīra’s asceticism was spent at the city of Bhaddiyā.³

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³ Ibid., loc. cit.

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At the village of Kadalī, Gosāla, while begging alone, found an almsgiving ceremony in progress. He accepted much more rice than he could eat, and the villagers, disgusted at his greediness, poured what was left in his bowl over his head. The same treatment was meted out to him at a village called Jambusanda. At Tambāya he was again involved in a quarrel with the followers of Pārśva.⁴

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⁴ Ibid., p. 291.

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Then the two proceeded to Vesālī. On the way Gosāla violently upbraided Mahāvīra for refusing to come to his assistance when attacked. He decided that his lot would be easier if he travelled alone, and the two ascetics parted company. Soon after this Gosāla fell in with a band of 500 robbers, by whom he was mercilessly teased, carried pick-a-back (?), and called “Grandfather”.⁵ He then determined to rejoin Mahāvīra, since in his company he had always been freed from his persecutors by some pious person who recognized Mahāvīra’s sanctity. He was left at last by the robbers, and after searching for six months found Mahāvīra, who was spending the sixth rainy season of his asceticism at the city of Bhaddiyā.⁶

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⁵ Pañcahi vi corasaehim vāhito mātulo tti kāum. Ibid., p. 292.

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⁶ Ibid., p. 293.

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The following year was spent in uneventful wanderings in Magadha, and the seventh rainy season was passed at Ālabhiyā.⁷

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⁷ Ibid., loc. cit.

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At Kuṇḍaga the two ascetics sheltered in the temple of Vāsudeva. Here Gosāla obscenely insulted the ikon, was seen by a villager, and was severely beaten. A similar event occurred at the village of Maddaṇā, in a temple of Baladeva.¹

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¹ Ibid., pp. 293-4. This is the interpretation of Muni Ratna-Prabha Vijaya (*Śramaṇa Bhagavān Mahāvīra*, vol. ii, pt. i, p. 440). The phrases *Vāsudeva-mahannavo* gives *maithuna* as a possible meaning of *sāgāriya* in the second phrase.

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At Lohaggala, described as the capital of King Jiyasattu, the couple were arrested as spies, but later identified and released. At Purimatāla they passed a bridal procession, and Gosāla received another beating for mocking the bride and bridegroom for their ugliness. Later at a place called Gobhūmi, he quarrelled with a company of cowherds, whom he called *mlecchas*, and was given the same treatment at their hands. The eighth rainy season was spent at Rāyagaha.²

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² Ibid., pp. 295-6.

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In his ninth year of asceticism Mahāvīra decided to visit non-Āryan countries, in order to invite persecution and thus to work off his *karma*. Accompanied by Gosāla he journeyed to Lāḍha and Vajjabhūmi (W. Bengal), where both were put to great ignominy by the uncouth inhabitants. There they spent the ninth rainy season.³

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³ Ibid., p. 296.

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In Mahāvīra’s tenth year of wandering they left the non-Āryan lands and went to Siddhatthagāma. Soon after this the incident of the sesamum plant occurred, which led to their final separation. This is described in full in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*, and will be considered below.

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In another time and place Jinadāsa’s terse Prākrit narrative would have been expanded by its author into a picaresque novel. In it Gosāla fills rather the rôle of a Sancho Panza than that of a Judas, for his misfortunes, while in part due to his loyalty to his master, and in part to his arrogance, are mainly the result of a lewd and surly clownishness, which can scarcely have been a significant element in the character of the founder of an important religious sect. The story as it stands is evidently fiction.

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Nevertheless it is of some value to the historian. The framework of the account of Mahāvīra’s peregrinations is based on a very ancient tradition, for otherwise Lāḍha would not be described as a non-Āryan country. The visit of Mahāvīra to this district is confirmed by the early *Ācārāṅga Sūtra*.¹ The *Kalpa Sūtra* confirms that Mahāvīra passed rainy seasons in the places specified by Jinadāsa,² with the exception of that spent in Lāḍha and Vajjabhūmi; this discrepancy is explained by the commentator Vinayavijaya, who states that Paṇiyabhūmi, where Mahāvīra is said by the *Kalpa Sūtra* to have spent a rainy season, is in Vajrabhūmi.³ Thus it is evident that Jinadāsa did not invent the whole of his story.

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¹ V. supra, p. 41.

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² *Kalpa Sūtra*, sū. 122, ed. Jacobi, p. 64.

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³ Fol. 187 (Bombay edn.).

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In respect of the length of the period of the association of the two ascetics Jinadāsa’s account differs from that of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*. The latter source states that the two were associated for a period of six years.⁴ According to the former their meeting took place at the end of the second rainy reason of Mahāvīra’s asceticism, which was spent at Nālandā, and the two parted in the season of Śarada, after the ninth rainy reason. The period of their association is thus seven years. We prefer, however, to accept the *Bhagavatī*’s six years, as being found in the earlier and more reliable source.

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⁴ V. supra, p. 40.

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We suggest that the inspiration of many of the incidents of this story was obtained from Ājīvika legends about their founder, which were adapted by Jinadāsa to display Gosāla in a ludicrous light. The episode of the broken pot, which strengthened his faith in the power of destiny, reminds us that Buddhaghosa also wrote of the spilling of the contents of a pot at a crucial moment of Gosāla’s career.⁵ We may believe that the Ājīvikas had legends in which Gosāla was said to have called down fire from heaven upon his adversaries by the virtue of his austerities, and that these were utilized by Jinadāsa to provide further episodes of his story.

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⁵ V. supra, p. 37.

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It is significant that four of Gosāla’s adventures are said to have taken place in Vaiṣṇavite temples. Jinadāsa may indeed have been guilty of anachronism in these episodes, for it is by no means certain that temple worship and iconolatry had developed in India in the sixth century B.C. But the gods involved, Vāsudeva and Baladeva, are among the earliest Vaiṣṇavite divinities known to us. Vaiṣṇavite tendencies are to be found in Ājīvika doctrine at a much later date,¹ and Ājīvikas are by one commentator explicitly identified with *ekadaṇḍins*, or Vaiṣṇava ascetics.² The association of Gosāla with Vaiṣṇavite temples and his expulsion from them may conceal an attempt of Jinadāsa to explain away a legend of the later Ājīvikas in which their founder was depicted as breaking away from some more orthodox system. The same may be the case with the story of Gosāla and the *daridda-theras*, with whom he was allowed to remain on sufferance. These suggest the devotees of some Vaiṣṇavite *bhakti* cult, and we have evidence that, like these, the Ājīvikas employed music in their religious practice.³

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¹ V. infra, p. 276.

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² V. infra, pp. 168 ff.

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³ V. infra, pp. 116–17.

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Thus, although Jinadāsa gives us little reliable information about the life of Gosāla, it may be that he gives a few hints on what the Ājīvikas themselves believed about their master.

Gosāla and the Sesamum Plant

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Still addressing his disciple Indabhūī Goyama, Mahāvīra is said by the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* to have told of two significant incidents which led to the separation of the two ascetics.

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During the season of *Śarada* the couple left the *vihāra* at the village of Siddhatthagāma, and set out for Kummāragāma. Neither of these places can be located, but we may assume that they were somewhere in Magadha. On the way to Kummāragāma they passed a flourishing sesamum shrub in full bloom. Looking at it, Gosāla asked Mahāvīra a question, apparently designed to test the latter's intuitive knowledge. "Sir," he asked, "will this sesamum bush bear fruit or not, and what will become of these seven sesamum flowers?"⁴ Mahāvīra replied that the shrub would develop, and that the seven sesamum flowers would produce seven seed-pods in one cluster.¹

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⁴ *Esa ṇam Bhante tila-thaml... phajjissati? Eë ya satta tila-puppha-jīvā udāittā... uvavajjihinti?* Bh. Sū. xv, sū. 542, fol. 664. In the above paraphrase we take *nipphajjissai* to mean "develop" or "bear fruit". This seems to make much better sense in the context than "perish", the interpretation of Hoernle (*ERE*. i, p. 263), and Barua (*Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy*, p. 301).

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¹ *Esa nam tilatthambhaë nipphajjissaï, no na-nipphajjissaï, eë ya satta tila-puppha-jīvā . . . egäë tila-saṅguliyäë satta tilā paccāyäissanti.* Op. cit., loc. cit. In this context the meaning of the word *saṅgulikā*, which I have translated "cluster", is uncertain. Abhayadeva interprets it as *phalikā* seed-pod. Each sesamum flower produces a pod, and in this case seven pods would therefore be expected; yet the text mentions only one *saṅgulikā*, which I therefore take to mean a cluster of pods or flowers. A single sesamum pod contains many more than seven seeds, and the *satta tilā* here seem to be not single seeds, but pods.

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This very definite answer displeased Gosāla, and he determined to prove Mahāvīra a liar; so he quietly dropped behind and pulled up the sesamum bush. But at that moment a shower of rain fell, the plant took root again,² and so the flowers ripened and seven sesamum pods were produced in one cluster, just as Mahāvīra had prophesied.

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² According to Jiṇadāsa's version of the story, the sesamum was replanted by the foot of a passing cow, sent by the *devas*. (*Āvaśyaka cūrṇi* i, p. 297.)

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Soon afterwards the couple returned by the same road.³ As they drew near the spot where the sesamum plant grew Gosāla reminded Mahāvīra of his forecast, and declared that he would find that the plant had not ripened and the seeds had not formed. Mahāvīra, on the other hand, stood firm by his prophecy. He declared that he had been aware all the time of what Gosāla had done. The plant had been pulled up, and had temporarily died, but it had been reanimated by the shower and was once more living, while the seven pods had developed in the cluster. Plants, Mahāvīra added, were capable of *paüṭṭa-parihāra*, or reanimation without transmigration.⁴

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³ *Bh. Sū.* xv, sū. 544, fol. 666.

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⁴ *Vaṇassaīkāīyā paüṭṭa-parihāram pariharanti.* Loc. cit.

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Gosāla would still not believe Mahāvīra's word. But, on approaching the sesamum cluster, he found that it contained the seven seed-pods, just as Mahāvīra had prophesied. The revival of the sesamum plant made such an impression upon him that he became convinced that all living things were likewise capable of reanimation. And on this point he and Mahāvīra parted company, and their association came to an end.

c11.s7.11

The strange story of Gosāla and the sesamum plant is possibly the adaptation of an Ājīvika parable connected with a particular point of Gosāla's doctrine. The early Ājīvikas may well have had a favourite simile resembling the story—that just as an uprooted sesamum plant may revive after rain, so a dead body may, given certain favourable conditions, be reanimated. This was certainly part of the Ājīvika creed,¹ and since its technical term, *païṭṭa-parihāra*, is also used here in the story of the sesamum shrub, it would seem that the story and the theory are in some way connected. Thus the Jaina account in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* may have been devised on the basis of the Ājīvika simile to discredit the latter sect. On the other hand we have no other evidence that the Ājīvikas used such a simile, and the possibility that the story has some basis of fact cannot be excluded.

c11.s7.12

¹ V. supra, p. 31.

Gosāla and Vesiyāyaṇa

c11.s8.1

A further event which took place at the end of the period of Gosāla’s association with Mahāvīra is also mentioned in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*.² The incident occurred on the journey to Kuṃmāragāma, after Gosāla had uprooted the sesamum plant. As they proceeded on their way the couple met a foolish ascetic (*bāla-tavassī*) named Vesiyāyaṇa, outside the village of Kuṇḍagāma; he was seated on the ground facing the sun, with his arms raised above his head, and was engaged in a series of fasts, each of three days’ duration. His body was covered with insects, born of the heat of the sun, and out of pity for all living things he would not interfere with them. Gosāla approached him and derisively asked him, “ Sir, are you a *muni* or a host for lice ? ” (*jūyā-sejjayaraë*). Vesiyāyaṇa did not reply, and Gosāla twice repeated the same question. After the third insult Vesiyāyaṇa’s wrath was thoroughly aroused. In order to encompass Gosāla’s destruction he stepped back seven or eight paces and released against him the magical heat which he had accumulated by his asceticism. But Mahāvīra, taking pity on his companion, counteracted the attack by releasing a flow of cooling magical power (*sīyaliyam teyalessam*). When Vesiyāyaṇa saw that Gosāla was in no way injured by his attack he was pacified, and recognized Mahāvīra’s superior psychic power.

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