History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s3: Makkhali Gosāla
History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s3
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Makkhali Gosāla
c11.s3.1
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.
c11.s3.2
³ Ed. Senart i, pp. 253, 256.
c11.s3.3
⁴ Ibid., iii, p. 383.
c11.s3.4
⁵ V. infra. pp. 38-39.
c11.s3.5
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.
Linked texts (3)
- Mahāvastu — Sanskrit
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
- Viyāhapannatti — Sudharman, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit