History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c13.s1.27

c13.s1.27

We have little information about the events of Pūraṇa’s life. The *Mahāvastu* ² states that he met the Buddha, before the latter’s enlightenment, at the village of Uruvilvā, and that while the latter received liberal alms from the villagers, Pūraṇa’s bowl remained empty. A certain Pūraṇa who may be the Pūraṇa Kassapa of Buddhist tradition, is described in the Jaina *Bhagavatī Sūtra*.³ He is said to have been a foolish ascetic (*bālatavassī*), who had previously been a householder in an unidentifiable place called Bebhela. On his begging rounds he made use of a bowl divided into four sections, and gave the contents of the first section to travellers, the second to crows and dogs, and the third to fish and tortoises, keeping only the contents of the fourth section for himself. He is said to have died by self-starvation after twelve years of asceticism, in the eleventh year of Mahāvīra’s ascetic career. In their details the two stories are not consistent, for, according to our synchronisms,⁴ the eleventh year of Mahāvīra’s asceticism fell in *c.* 500–499 B.C., the year following his breach with Gosāla. If Pūraṇa’s mendicancy commenced only twelve years before this date the Buddha must then have been in the thirteenth or fourteenth year of his enlightenment, and could not have met the mendicant Pūraṇa while still a *bodhisattva*. We suggest that the twelve years in the Jaina story refer in fact not to Pūraṇa’s whole career as a mendicant, but to the period of his claim to *jina*-hood. Thus the two stories may be harmonized.