History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c13.s1.20

c13.s1.20

These two references establish without reasonable doubt that Pūraṇa was an important figure among the later Ājīvikas; and the Pūraṇa of these texts must surely be none other than Pūraṇa Kassapa of the Pāli scriptures. It is surprising that no detailed reference to him occurs in the Jaina canon, where several Pūraṇas are mentioned, but none certainly suggesting the heretic Pūraṇa of the Buddhist scriptures. For this reason our knowledge of Pūraṇa’s life is more fragmentary than that of the life of Makkhali Gosāla, for in the case of Pūraṇa we have not two independent sets of sources upon which to work.