History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s1.34

c14.s1.34

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