History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s2.1

c14.s2.1

Among the earliest views on the derivation of the word Ājīvika are those of Burnouf and Lassen. The former ¹ believed that the term had no derogatory significance, but meant "one who lives on the charity of others", deriving it from *a-jīva*, "the absence of livelihood," with the addition of the suffix *-ka* and the consequent lengthening by *vṛddhi* of the initial vowel. As an alternative explanation Burnouf supported Lassen, who, on the basis of a similar etymology, believed that the word meant an ascetic who ate no living or animal food.² Neither of these interpretations is acceptable. The presence of the alternative form *Jīvaka*, attested by the lexicographers ³ and by the astrologer Vaidyanātha Dīkṣita,⁴ proves that the first syllable of the word cannot be a privative.