History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s1.57

c14.s1.57

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.