History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c12.8

c12.8

The *disācaras* were obviously wandering ascetic philosophers of some sort, but the uncommon name given to them suggests that they were of a special type. They were evidently on good terms with Gosāla, and appear to have shared his doctrines. Their names, like those of most of the lesser figures associated with Gosāla, cannot well be connected with any of those in Pāli and Sanskrit literature. Sāṇa, Kaṇiyāra, and Acchidda seem to have no counterparts whatever; Kaḷanda, however, is in some manuscripts called Kaṇanda,¹ which suggests the Vaiśeṣika philosopher Kaṇāda. The name of Ajjuṇṇa Gomāyuputta suggests that of Ajjuṇa Goyamaputta,² the teacher whose mantle possibly fell upon Gosāla, but who must have died sixteen years previously.³ Barua⁴ suggests that he was “the same as the Ājīvika Pāṇḍuputta, son of a repairer of old carts”.⁵ Since the epic Arjuna was the son of Pāṇḍu, Pāṇḍuputta and Ajjuṇa may be taken as synonyms of the same name, but the argument is extremely tenuous. Even though we accept the very doubtful equivalence of the two names, Pāṇḍuputta of the Pāli reference may equally well have been Ajjuṇa Goyamaputta, the previous host of the soul of Udāī, from whose body that soul was said to have passed to that of Gosāla in its last paüṭṭa-parihāra.⁶