History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s3.17

c14.s3.17

Another element in the Ājīvika initiation, for which there is confirmation in a later source, is described in the Dhammapada Commentary, in the story of Jambuka, to which we have already referred.⁷ The events there described ostensibly refer to the unorganized pre-Makkhali Ājīvikas, but the details of the account of Jambuka’s initiation may have been provided by Buddhaghosa, and perhaps apply to the organized community of Makkhali. Jambuka’s habits are so disgusting that his parents decide that he is not fitted for ordinary life, but only for the Ājīvikas (*Ājīvikānam esa anucchaviko*). Therefore they take him to a local group of Ājīvika ascetics, apparently while he is still a child, and request that he be initiated into their community. The boy is placed in a pit up to his neck, planks are laid over the pit, above his collar-bones, and, sitting on the planks, the Ājīvikas pull out his hair with a piece of the rib of a palm-leaf.¹ It seems that the early Ājīvikas, like the Jainas, extracted the hair by the roots, and that the custom persisted among them is attested by the Tamil text *Civañāṇa-cittiyār*.²