History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s3.10

c14.s3.10

The word used in this phrase to express his nudity is nagga-bhogga, which the Pāli Text Society’s Dictionary interprets as “one whose goods are nakedness”. The term is thrice employed in the Jātakas,¹ the first and second instances describing the condition of castaways, one of whom became a false ascetic,² and the third being an epithet of Guṇa. Very similar compound adjectives are to be found in use much later than the time of the Jātakas’ composition. An inscription at Belagāmi, Mysore,³ dated A.D. 1162, catalogues the types of ascetic to whom alms were given at the Koḍiya maṭh; as well as the Jaina kṣapaṇakas and the Hindu paramahaṃsas, who seem to have been habitually naked,⁴ the visitors to the maṭh included nagna-bhagnas.⁵ The Rājatarangiṇī refers to rugṇa-nagnāṭaka ascetics, with emaciated or decayed noses, feet, and hands,⁶ who have many points in common with, and may have been, Ājīvikas. We therefore believe that the Pāli word nagga-bhogga should be read as a dvandva adjective, rather than as a bahuvrīhi, and that its second member is equivalent to the Sanskrit bhugna (“bent”), rather than bhogya (“property”); thus the meaning of the term would be not “one whose goods are nakedness”, but “one naked and crippled”. The Ājīvika initiatory ordeals may well have resulted in such mutilation and deformity as to qualify the ascetic for these titles.