History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s3.3

c14.s3.3

Two Pāli references give us some indication of the processes of entry into the Ājīvika mendicant fraternity. *Tittira Jātaka*³ tells of an unfortunate false ascetic (*niggatiko duṭṭha-tāpaso*), who, after a career of chicanery and fraud, is judged and executed by a lion. The tiger who prosecutes him at the lion’s court describes the prisoner in a few lines of verse of considerable interest; among other things, says the tiger, he has “burnt his hands by grasping a lump”.⁴ The commentary elucidates the phrase: “At the time of his going forth as an Ājīvika his hands were burnt by grasping a heated lump.”⁵ This seems a reliable indication that the early Ājīvika was sometimes initiated by a painful ordeal, and there are faint suggestions of the survival of the practice at a much later date.