History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s1.1

c11.s1.1

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.