History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s4.4

c14.s4.4

In later times the rule of nudity does not seem to have been so regularly followed. The *Bhagavatī Sūtra* states that on his death the corpse of Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta was arrayed in a splendid robe and bedecked with ornaments,⁴ which suggests that some form of pontifical finery was not unknown to the leaders of Ājīvikism. The *Dhammapada Commentary* seems sometimes to distinguish between the words *ājīvika* and *acelaka*,⁵ the latter of which was a term of wide connotation and was probably used to refer to any unclothed ascetic. The Ājīvikas depicted at Borobudur wear clothes,⁶ and Canarese texts confuse the Ājīvikas with yellow-robed Buddhists.⁷ There is ample evidence that wide differences of doctrine existed within the later Ājīvika community,⁸ and with some of its sub-sects, as with the Jainas, the cult of nakedness may have tended to die out at an early date.