History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s9.13

c11.s9.13

Gosāla’s acquisition of magic power must represent an Ājīvika tradition similar to those of the Jainas and Buddhists, in which the enlightenment of the founders of the respective sects is described. Between this and the meeting with the *disācaras*, something over sixteen years must have elapsed. In this period it is not likely that Gosāla resided continuously at Sāvatthi; probably, like his greater rivals Buddha and Mahāvīra, he travelled from place to place among the towns and villages of the Ganges valley, preaching and gathering converts. There is evidence that Ājīvikas of a sort, both ascetics and laymen, existed already at the time,⁴ and his mission probably consisted largely in knitting together locally influential Ājīvika holy men and their followers, regularizing their doctrines, and gaining converts by the display of pseudo-supernatural powers. The Jaina tradition about Gosāla agrees with that of the Buddhists concerning the six heretics, that magical performances were part of his stock in trade, and it appears that he was capable, either honestly or by fraud, of producing psychic phenomena.