History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c13.s2.26

c13.s2.26

Other incidents in the stories of Pūraṇa’s death remind us of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*’s account of the death of Gosāla. Both events take place in Sāvatthi, both follow a contest at which miraculous powers are displayed, and both take place in an atmosphere of great excitement and tension among the ascetic communities. The great storm which preceded Pūraṇa’s death suggests the Last Great Storm Cloud, one of the eight finalities declared by Gosāla in his last illness.⁴ Pūraṇa’s frantic flight from the scene of the contest and his violent thirst may be parallelled by the delirium of Gosāla, when he bathed in muddy water used for mixing the potter’s clay.⁵ Mango stones occur in both stories.⁶ The strange figure of the prostitute in the *Divyāvadāna* version of the story tenuously suggests Hālāhalā the potter-woman, for it would seem, in the light of the numerous references to the licentious conduct of the early Ājīvikas,⁷ that the author of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* intended to insinuate that her relations with Gosāla were closer than those of a hospitable lay disciple.