History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s6: The Peregrinations of the Two Ascetics

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s6

Language: English

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

Linked texts (4)

Āyāraṃga — Sudharman, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit
Kalpasūtra — Bhadrabāhu, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit
Āvassaya — Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit
Viyāhapannatti — Sudharman, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit