History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s3.1

c14.s3.1

New members seem normally to have been inducted into the Ājīvika order after an initiation ceremony. Before the ministry of Makkhali Gosāla, among local Ājīvika groups and independent mendicants, the ceremony seems to have varied considerably from one group to another. We have already met unscrupulous men who initiated themselves into a profitable career of asceticism by the simple process of losing their clothes.² Many spurious mendicants of this type, often loosely called Ājīvikas, must have existed both before and after the days of Makkhali Gosāla. We may, however, assume that Makkhali’s organization of the loosely knit ascetics was effective in introducing some regularity into the procedure of admission to the order and initiation.