History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s1.43

c14.s1.43

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.