History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s4.15

c14.s4.15

It is generally agreed that Mahāvīra founded his order upon a looser group of ascetics, wearing clothing and by no means strict in their chastity, who looked back to the shadowy Pārśva Nātha, the twenty-third *tīrthaṅkara* of Jaina hagiology. Jainism in its later form, it is suggested, was but a development of the older proto-Jainism of Pārśva.⁷ It seems, moreover, that the early Jaina monk, although called *acela*, was not normally completely nude, but wore a loincloth⁸; while Mahāvīra himself was habitually naked, he permitted his followers to wear a minimum of covering to avoid embarrassment and the accusation of indecency. On the other hand the nudity of the Ājīvika seems usually at this period to have been total. This point has been clearly made by Hoernle,¹ who shows that in the Ājīvika sixfold classification of men² the white class (*sukk’-ābhijāti*) consisted of Ājīvikas and Ājīvinīs, while the red (*lohit’-ābhijāti*), two stages below it, contained nigaṇṭhas wearing one cloth (*eka-sāṭaka*). The complete nudity of the Ājīvika is further made clear from the description of Pūraṇa in the *Divyāvadāna*, which precludes the wearing even of a loincloth.³ Thus the Ājīvika seems to have gone further in his nudity than the early Jaina. We may assume that his motive was the same as that which inspired Mahāvīra in instituting the custom in the Jaina order, the acquisition of complete indifference to all physical sensation.⁴