History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s5.14

c14.s5.14

For the last item of the list we have partial confirmation from a Tamil source. Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar, the fourteenth century commentator on the early Tamil grammar, Tolkāppiyam, quotes as an example an unidentified verse which mentions the existence of ascetics who perform penances in tāḻi, or funerary urns.⁶ Dr. K. R. Srinivasan, who has noticed this reference,⁷ states categorically that these ascetics were Ājīvikas, who, he seems to believe, were identical with Jainas. In fact the text does not give any information on the sectarian affinities of the ascetics in question, but since we know that Ājīvikas were present in the Tamil country, and since this strange system of penance is ascribed to them in the Jaina text, we may assume that the ascetics referred to in the Tamil verse were Ājīvikas.