History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c14.s5.35

c14.s5.35

That the Ājīvikas lived in communities is clear from this and numerous other references. But it is probable that some Ājīvikas at any rate withdrew themselves from human contacts. Hoernle,¹ on the strength of Weber's paraphrase of the *Paramahaṃsa Upaniṣad*,² has pointed out the existence of two classes of mendicant among the *ekadaṇḍins*, of which the higher, or *paramahaṃsa*, abandoned his loincloth, staff, and begging bowl, and lived absolutely unimpeded by worldly possessions. Some such distinction may have existed among the Ājīvikas, who were sometimes looked upon as a species of the genus *ekadaṇḍin*.³ But we have seen that even Gosāla, although he seems to have been habitually naked, did not discard his begging bowl⁴; and the mendicants described in the *Paramahaṃsa Upaniṣad* are evidently orthodox Hindu ascetics; thus the conclusion is by no means certain.