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History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s1: The Wandering Philosophers

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s1

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The Wandering Philosophers

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It is now generally agreed that the ground for the development of non-brāhmaṇic religious sects in India was prepared before the days of the great reforming leaders of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. In the case of the Ājīvikas there is evidence which points to the fact that Makkhali Gosāla found already in existence ascetic groups following a more or less common way of life and looking back to teachers of previous generations. By knitting these local groups together under his own leadership he established the Ājīvika sect. The tradition, preserved in the Buddhist scriptures, linking Makkhali Gosāla’s name with those of Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Saṅkicca,¹ and that of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*, which seems to record a succession of religious teachers preceding Gosāla,² are evidence pointing strongly in that direction.

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¹ V. supra, pp. 27 ff.

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² V. supra, pp. 30 ff.

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As Charpentier recognized,³ Ājīvika ascetics are met in the Pāli scriptures at a time when Makkhali Gosāla cannot have commenced his ministry, if we accept the chronology suggested in a previous chapter.⁴ The most striking of these is Upaka the Ājīvika, who, as a symbol of benevolent incredulity, has found a small but significant place in the legends of Buddhism. Upaka is said to have encountered the Buddha on the road to Gayā, immediately after the latter’s enlightenment. He noticed the supernal calmness and peace in the bearing of the great teacher, and asked who he was, who was his instructor, and what were his doctrines. When the Buddha told Upaka of his enlightenment he merely said “It may be so, sir!” (*hupeyya āvuso*), and went on by another way. The historicity of this story is perhaps strengthened by the fact that it is mentioned no less than four [Figure: THE BUDDHA MEETS UPAKA THE ĀJĪVIKA. (From Krom, The Life of the Buddha on the Stūpa of Barabuḍur.)]

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³ *JRAS*. 1913, pp. 673–4.

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⁴ V. supra, p. 74.

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times in the Pāli texts ¹ with little variation, and occurs also in the Mahāyāna scriptures.²

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¹ *Jāt.* i, p. 81; *Vin.* i, p. 8; *Majjh.* i, pp. 170–1; *Dhammapad’-aṭṭhakathā* iv, pp. 71–2.

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² E.g. *Lalitavistra* xxvi, p. 405, where Upaka’s words “*Tad bhaviṣyasi Gautama!*” are couched in the future tense in place of the Pāli optative, and seem to imply faith rather than doubt.

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Upaka the Ājīvika does not vanish from the scene after his meeting with the Buddha. In the *Therīgāthā*,³ where he is called Kāla, he is said to have fallen madly in love with a hunter’s daughter Cāpā, whom he married and by whom he had a son, Subhadda. His wife appears to have treated him badly, continually taunting him for his earlier Ājīvika connections. One day he remembered his meeting with the Buddha, left his wife, and went to the Buddha at Sāvatthi. There he entered the Buddhist order, and later became an *anāgāmī*. On his death he was reborn in the Aviha heaven.

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³ *Therīg.*, 291–311, with comm., pp. 220 ff.

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Upaka was a Magadhan. According to the *Therīgāthā* Commentary ⁴ he was born at the village of Nāla, near the Bodhi Tree, and lived there with Cāpā after abandoning his asceticism for the life of a householder. If the legend of Upaka be accepted it must be taken to imply that Ājīvika mendicants roamed the roads of Magadha at least a generation before the commencement of Gosāla’s ministry.

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⁴ *Paramattha Dīpanī* v, p. 225.

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The towns mentioned in connection with the seven reanimations of Udāī in the *Bhagavatī Sūtra* ⁵ also suggest that, even before Gosāla’s ministry, the regions of Kosala, Magadha, Kāsī, Videha, and Campā were the homes of peripatetic naked philosophers of the Ājīvika type. It is probable that these travelling philosophers, however abstruse their metaphysical doctrines, aimed at gaining the support of the populace, and very often obtained it. An interesting picture of the conditions which must have prevailed at the time is given in *Neru Jātaka*,⁶ where we find a certain Buddhist *bhikkhu* preaching in an unnamed frontier village, and winning considerable support from the villagers. On his departure his place is taken by an “eternalist” (*sassatavādi*), then by an “annihilationist” (*ucchedavādi*), and finally by a naked ascetic (acelaka), who in turn gain the temporary loyalty of the villagers.

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⁵ V. supra, pp. 31–32.

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⁶ *Jāt.* iii, pp. 246 ff.

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The religious atmosphere of the time is perhaps comparable to that which prevailed in the Roman Empire, when many people had lost their implicit faith in traditional verities, and were ready to support any new cult which offered a more plausible and attractive system of belief. In Rome the changing spiritual requirements were met in large measure by mystery cults imported from the East. In India, in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., the wandering ascetics filled the need.

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It is quite evident that these wanderers maintained a wide range of doctrines and varied rules of conduct. They were known by various titles, which usually denoted loosely knit classes of ascetic rather than regularly organized orders, as the Buddhist bhikkhus and the Jaina samaṇas later became. Beside these two terms we find others such as acelaka, nigaṇṭha, and of course ājīvika, which are used quite loosely, and obviously do not imply membership of any organized religious body. Thus in the Majjhima Nikāya¹ the Buddha declares that in his long experience of transmigration he has known no Ājīvika to go to heaven but one, and that one was a believer in karma and the efficiency of works.² This suggests either that all the early Ājīvikas did not accept Makkhali Gosāla’s quietist determinism and that the term was sometimes used to denote a wider class of heretical mendicant with varying beliefs, or that there were early schisms of Makkhali’s sect which rejected the cardinal doctrine of the founder. The former is the more probable explanation.

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¹ Majjh. i, 483.

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² So p’ āsi kammavādī kiriyavādī. Loc. cit.

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In some texts Ājīvikas are clearly distinguished from nigaṇṭhas,³ but the Sandaka Sutta seems to embrace all six of the heretical teachers, including the great leader of the nigaṇṭhas, Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta or Mahāvīra, in the general category of Ājīvikas.⁴ In the Dhammapada Commentary⁵ Buddhaghosa describes the ascetic with unsettled mind (anavaṭṭhita-citto), who may start as an acelaka, then become an Ājīvaka, then a nigaṇṭha, and finally a tāpasa. Yet in the same work he tells the story of Migāra,¹ the banker of Sāvatthi, who is a follower of naked ascetics (nagga-samaṇā), but who falls foul of them when his daughter-in-law becomes a devotee of the Buddha. Here the five hundred ascetics who besiege him in his house are referred to indiscriminately as nagga-samaṇā, acelakā, and ājīvikā. Similarly the Divyāvadāna, in the story of Aśoka, seems to use the terms Ājīvaka and Nirgrantha synonymously.²

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³ E.g. Sutta-nipāta, 381. Ye ke c’ ime titthiyā vādasīlā, Ājīvikā vā yadi vā nigaṇṭhā.

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⁴ Majjh. i, pp. 513 ff. V. supra, pp. 18 19.

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⁵ Dhp. Comm. i, p. 309.

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¹ Ibid. i, pp. 390 ff.

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² V. infra, pp. 147–48.

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The significance of this apparent confusion may perhaps be explained by reference to another story in the Dhammapada Commentary,³ in which the boy Jambuka is handed by his parents to a community of Ājīvikas and initiated into their order; but his asceticism takes a form too loathsome even for the Ājīvikas to tolerate, and he is expelled from the community. After this he obtains a great reputation for sanctity as a “wind-eater” (vāta-bhakkho), until he is ultimately converted by the Buddha. Buddhaghosa states that his career as a wind-eater lasted for fifty-five years, thus giving a further indication of the existence of Ājīvikas before Makkhali Gosāla. But the significance of the story in this context lies in the fact that even fifty-five years after his expulsion from the order of Ājīvikas he is still referred to by the Buddha as “Jambuka the Ājīvika”. We have here a clear indication that the term was used not only for the organized ascetic order of Makkhali, but for free-lance ascetics of a similar type, or for followers of other leaders who later merged with the Ājīvika order.

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³ Dhp. Comm. ii, pp. 52 ff.

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This has been recognized by Barua in his latest work on the subject.⁴ “The term Ājīvika,” he writes, “is used in Indian literature; (1) in its widest sense to denote the Parivrājakas or Wanderers as distinguished from the Tāpasas or hermits; (2) in its narrower sense to denote the religious orders represented by the five Tīrthaṅkaras, Pūraṇa Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla and the rest, considered heretics by the Buddhists; and (3) in its narrowest sense to denote the disciples and followers of Makkhali or Maṅkhaliputta Gosāla.”

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⁴ ABORI. viii, p. 183.

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We are doubtful about Dr. Barua’s first category, although in the Jānakī-haraṇa the term may have been intended in this sense.¹ We have seen that the second usage is very common in early Buddhist literature. But we must add a rider to Barua’s statement, to the effect that some at least of the heretical tīrthaṅkaras seem to have been loosely allied, and to have had many points of doctrine in common.

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¹ V. infra, pp. 165 ff.

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Dr. Barua has attempted to provide an ancestry for the Ājīvikas. “I cannot but strongly feel that all possible inquiries concerning Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Saṅkicca are sure to lead the historian back to a typical representative of the Vānaprastha or Vaikhānasa order of Indian Hermits.”² In his latest article he is even more definite. “The Ājīvika as a religious order and school of philosophy is known in the Vedic hymns, the Brāhmaṇas, the Āraṇyakas, and other ancient Sanskrit compilations and treatises that can safely be regarded as literary products of a pre-Jaina and pre-Buddhistic age.”³ Unfortunately he gives no references to or quotations from any of these works. This being the case we can only regret that Dr. Barua did not develop his surprising theory more fully, and declare that no statements known to us in pre-Buddhist literature suggest the existence of any such order. To the best of our knowledge the earliest non-Buddhist and non-Jaina reference suggesting the Ājīvikas occurs in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad,⁴ which is of comparatively late date.⁵ Our own views on the origin of Ājīvikism have already been expressed—we do not believe that it derived from Vedic or Brāhmaṇical sources.⁶

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² JDL. ii, p. 4.

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³ ABORI. viii, pp. 183-4.

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⁴ V. infra, pp. 228-29.

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⁵ Macdonnell, Sanskrit Literature, pp. 233-4.

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⁶ V. supra, pp. 6-9.

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We must also disagree with Dr. Barua’s first statement, which implies that the Ājīvikas derived from the forest hermits. Whatever the status of the mysterious predecessors of Makkhali Gosāla, the first Ājīvika of whom the Buddhist scriptures bear record, Upaka, is not a hermit with a settled āśrama in the forest, but a mendicant, wandering from place to place. We believe also that Barua is mistaken in suggesting that the vānaprasthas were an order, in the sense of a body of ascetics with an organized system of practice and doctrine. Rather we believe that the terms vānaprastha and vaikhānasa were approximately synonymous and of broad connotation, both implying a forest hermit of the third *āśrama*; the diversity of the doctrines and disciplines of these hermits is clear from the *Upaniṣads* and from the Pāli scriptures.

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Hoernle, in his discussion of the origin of the Ājīvikas, pins his faith on the derivation of the name Makkhali. “It describes Gosāla as having originally belonged to the Maṅkhali or Maskarin class of religious mendicants . . . The Maskarin, as a rule, led a solitary life and the adoption of this manner of life was open to very grave abuses. Hence some men of commanding personality conceived the task of regulating the tendency (to abuses) . . . by organizing the mendicants into communities governed by strict rules of conduct.” ¹

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¹ *ERE.* i, p. 260.

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Much of Hoernle’s statement seems correct. He appears, however, to imply by the word “class” a degree of precision only slightly less than Barua’s “order”. The term *maskarin* was in fact a very loose one. Pāṇini’s etymology ² seems only to imply that the word means a mendicant bearing a staff, of whatever class or order. Admittedly there is evidence, beside that of Makkhali’s name, to show that the early Ājīvikas carried staves. Hoernle himself quotes *Tittira Jātaka*, ³ the twelfth and thirteenth verses of which describe a mendicant, said in the commentary to be an Ājīvika, as carrying a bamboo staff (*vetācāra*). “The verses occurring in the Buddhist Jātakas,” Hoernle adds, “embody the most ancient folklore—of a much older date than Buddhism itself,” thereby implying that long before Makkhali a body of staff-bearing ascetics existed, from which the later Ājīvikas developed.

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² V. supra, p. 78.

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³ *Jāt.* iii, p. 542.

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The Ājīvika Upaka is also referred to as bearing a staff. ⁴ Indeed staves probably became a regular mark of the Ājīvika order. But it must be noted that, except for its employment in the *sūtra* of Pāṇini, and as an epithet of Gosāla, the word *maskarin* is not to be found until the classical period of Sanskrit literature, and then seems to be used with very varied connotations. Kumāradāsa equates *maskarin* and *ājīvika*, ⁵ but the *Bhaṭṭikāvya*, of the sixth or seventh century A.D. ⁶ uses the word in a sense which certainly does not suggest a follower of Gosāla. ⁷ Bāṇa describes a *maskarin* with a skull for a begging-bowl and wearing a red robe, who must surely have been a Śaivite.¹ The commentator Utpala seems to equate the words *ājīvika* and *ekadaṇḍin*,² the latter certainly meaning an ascetic with a single staff as part of his insignia. But Halāyudha the lexicographer quotes the word *ājīvika* as a member of a class containing various other terms for a heretical ascetic,³ while *maskarin* occurs in the same verse as do the names of more orthodox and respectable ascetics, such as *tapasvin*, *parivrājaka*, *tāpasa*, etc.⁴ Hemacandra also includes the word *maskarin* with *vaikhānasa* *vānaprastha* and *yati* in a group not including *ājīvika*.⁵ In fact we have no reason to believe that the term *maskarin* ever meant more than a staff-bearing mendicant of any order. Certainly it was sometimes used to designate the Ājīvikas, but it included a group much wider than they, as Dr. Barua ultimately recognized.⁶ This being the case we cannot believe that an "order" of *maskarin*s existed before Gosāla's day, and that the Ājīvikas developed from them.

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⁴ *Laṭṭhi-hattho*, *Therīg.*, 291.

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⁵ *Jānakī-haraṇa* x, 76. V. infra, p. 165, n 4.

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⁶ Keith, *History of Sanskrit Literature*, p. 116.

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⁷ V. infra, p. 166.

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¹ *Harṣa-carita* ed. Führer, pp. 152–3. V. infra, p. 167.

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² V. infra, pp. 169 ff.

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³ *Abhidhāna-ratnamālā* ii, 189–190. V. infra, p. 182.

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⁴ Ibid. ii, 254.

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⁵ *Abhidhāna-cintāmaṇi*, 809–810. V. infra, p. 182.

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⁶ ABORI. viii, p. 184. For a further consideration of the term *maskarin* v. infra, pp. 163 ff.

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It seems, in fact, an anachronism to suggest that any organized *sanghas* existed before the time of Buddha, Mahāvīra, and Makkhali Gosāla. Certainly there existed hermits, either solitary or living in colonies, and wandering mendicants. We suggest that the hermit colonies gathered round locally respected leaders, the fame of some of whom probably spread far beyond the locality of their hermitages and often survived their deaths. But the picture painted by the Buddha, when describing his search for truth among the forest teachers,⁷ and the flourishing and often fantastic speculations of the *Upaniṣads*, suggest that even within local groups there existed considerable differences of doctrine. In fact India at the time of the emergence of the heterodox sects seems to have been in a state of theological anarchy, mitigated only by orthodox Brāhmaṇism, which was by no means satisfying to the best minds of the times.

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⁷ *Jāt.* i, pp. 66 ff.

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The solitaries, whether hermits or wanderers, must by their very nature have been laws unto themselves. That they often held certain doctrines and followed certain practices in common might be expected from the basic similarity of human temperaments and the imitative propensities of the human animal. But there is no reason to believe that they were bound by any rules other than self-made ones, such as vows taken on embarking on their careers of mendicancy. The disciplinary innovations of the reforming leaders consisted partly in persuading some of these independent roving philosophers to accept common rules, and in linking them to hermit communities and giving them coherence by insisting on their residence in *vihāras* during the rainy reason. We believe that these wandering sophists and ascetics, rather than hermits or non-existent ascetic "orders", played the biggest part in the development of the heretical *saṅghas* of Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikism.

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