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History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c15.s2: Accusations of Worldliness and Immorality

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c15.s2

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Accusations of Worldliness and Immorality

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By the Buddhist the Ājīvika ascetic was accused of secret indulgence in rich foods behind a cloak of false austerity, while by the Jaina he was often condemned for his unchastity.

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The first accusation is best expressed in the *Mahāsaccaka Sutta*, part of which has been quoted above.³ When the ascetic Saccaka has completed his description of the extravagant fasts of the *acelakas* the Buddha asks him: "How can they survive on such fare?" To this Saccaka replies: "From time to time they eat excellent food, spice it with excellent spices, and drink excellent beverages. Thus they increase their bodily strength and grow fat."⁴

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³ *V.* supra, pp. 118–19.

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⁴ *App’ ekadā bho Gotama uḷārāni uḷārāni khādaniyāni khādanti, . . . bhojanāni bhuñjanti, . . . sāyaniyāni sāyanti, pānāni pivanti; te imehi kāyam balam gāhenti nāma brūhenti nāma, medenti nāma.* Majjh. i, p. 238.

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As has been shown, the passage seems intended to apply to extreme ascetics generally, and not to the Ājīvikas alone. It has already been made clear that Ājīvika practices were not as strict as the *Mahāsaccaka Sutta* suggests. The story of the princely Ājīvika mendicant, who persuaded the Buddha to relax his rule forbidding common meals in the order, and invited him and his *bhikkhus* to a meal provided by his relative King Bimbisāra,¹ suggests a freedom of discipline and an absence of austerity which is not to be disproved by passages of vague application such as that in *Mahāsaccaka Sutta*. The latest available reference to Ājīvikas, that of Vaidyanātha Dīkṣita, the fifteenth century astrologer, confirms their reputation for voracity; the author states that the Ājīvika is devoted to food (*aśana-paro*) and loquacious (*jalpako*).²

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¹ *Vinaya*, i, 190 and infra, n. 190.

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² *Ibid.*, p. 184.

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If the Buddhist insisted on the hypocrisy of the Ājīvika in the matter of diet, the Jaina accused him of sexual laxity. The accusation is explicit in the dialogue between Gosāla and Adda in the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga*, wherein the former is made to declare that, according to his *dhamma*, the ascetic incurs no sin from women.³ The same book also speaks of indifferent ascetics, the slaves of women, who maintain that there is no more sin in intercourse with women than in squeezing a boil.⁴ These, however, are identified by Śīlāṅka not with the Ājīvikas but with the Buddhists or Śaivites. The *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* again levels the same accusation at unnamed ascetics, whom Śīlāṅka identifies with the followers of Gosāla, and who appear to maintain the doctrine of *maṇḍala-mokṣa*, a characteristic feature of the creed of the Dravidian Ājīvikas.⁵ “A wise man,” states the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga*, “should consider that these (heretics) do not live a life of chastity.”⁶ The nature of the relations of Gosāla with his patron Hālāhalā the potter woman are nowhere explicitly stated, but it seems to be implied that they were not honest.

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³ *Sū. kr.*, ii, 6, 18; *cf.* pp. 53–54, 114, 121.

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⁴ *Sū. kr.*, ii, 6, 20: *n'atthi itthīsu doso uunnu kau sia*. *Ibid.*, i, 3, 4, 10, fol. 97. *lejja muhuttagam, Evam vinnavanitthīsu doso uunnu kau sia*.

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⁵ V. infra, pp. 257 ff.

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⁶ *Sū. kr.* i, 1, 3, 13, fol. 45. *Etāṇuvīti medhāvī bambhacere ṇa te vase*.

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A possible Buddhist reference to Ājīvika sexual laxity occurs in the *Vinaya*.⁷ At Sāvatthi a certain layman gave a building (*uddositam*) to the community of *bhikkhunīs*. On his death his two sons divided the property, and the elder, an unscrupulous rogue, laid claim to the nunnery. After failing to obtain its return by legal means he tried to drive the *bhikkhunīs* out by threats.

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⁷ *Vin. iv*, pp. 223 ff.

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Their elder, Thullanandā, informed the officials (mahāmattā), who punished the young man. His final stratagem was to import a community of Ājīvika ascetics, to whom he gave a settlement (Ājīvika-seyyam) in the vicinity, with the instructions to entice the bhikkhunīs (etā bhikkhuniyo accāvadatha). The significance of the word accāvadatha is uncertain, and it is possible that the Ājīvikas were merely told to revile the nuns. This is the interpretation of Buddhaghosa.¹ But the bhikkhunīs had already been reviled to no effect, and it might be expected that a different stratagem would be tried in this case; therefore the alternative meaning of the word seems more appropriate here. With this uncertain exception the Buddhists do not depict the Ājīvikas as sexually lax, but only as devoted to useless and hypocritical fasts and penances.

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¹ Atikkamitvā vadatha akkosathā ti. Samantapāsādikā iv, p. 906.

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Turning to later references we find but faint suggestions of Ājīvika licentiousness. The Ājīvika teacher in Nilakēci, however, seems aware of the accusation, and tells his interlocutor not to be censorious because his community is addicted to cuvai, an ambiguous word which may mean sensual pleasure.² A Canarese poem, dated 1180, and inscribed near the doorway of the Gommateśvara temple at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa includes a verse on the "other guides who, while exhorting their ascetics against the evils of false penance, allow themselves to be closely associated with women".³ The use of the word āptar to indicate the false guides, suggests that the Jaina author had the Ājīvikas in mind, since the term seems to have been a popular designation of Maṛkali among the Dravidian Ājīvikas.⁴ The Rājataraṅgiṇī speaks of an ascetic, who may have been an Ājīvika, living in the hut of a prostitute.⁵ These hints suggest that the small Ājīvika community retained some of its bad reputation; but as its influence waned the accusations seem to have been pressed home less fiercely, and in many cases to have been forgotten. With the exception of the doubtful phrase in Nilakēci, the three chief Tamil sources make no mention of Ājīvika immorality.

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² Cuvai-y ē-y uṭaiyamm eṇa nī-y ikaḷ al. Nil. 678. The commentary equates cuvai with sarasam, which is equally ambiguous.

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³ Epi. Carn. ii (2nd edn.), No. 234. The translation is that of Dr. Narasimhachar.

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⁴ V. supra, p. 79.

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⁵ V. infra, p. 209.

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The long Jaina tradition that the Ājīvikas were not celibate cannot be wholly without foundation. It is clear that many ancient Indian ascetics, including the proto-Jainas who followed Pārśva,¹ took no vows of chastity. The legendary ṛṣis shared their austerities with their wives, and must have had later counterparts. Their own religious literature shows that the Jaina monks themselves were not always as strict in the maintenance of chastity as the founder of their order might have desired, and that occasional lapses were often looked upon as mere peccadilloes.² The dissolute religious mendicants of the farce *Matta-vilāsa* are types of a class which must have been very widespread in Ancient India. We are not justified in believing, on the strength of Jaina evidence, that the Ājīvikas were necessarily as debauched and degenerate as the characters in that play however. That the Ājīvika order was capable of survival for two thousand years, that it produced scriptures, and a philosophy and logic of its own, is proof that some at least of its members were educated, thoughtful, and sincere. The references to stern Ājīvika austerities and to the Ājīvika practice of *ahiṃsā* in the texts which we have quoted, indicate that, however relaxed their discipline may have been in some respects, the Ājīvikas generally pursued their religious quest by the traditional Indian paths of pain, fasting, and gentleness.

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¹ Hoernle, *ERE*. i, p. 264, basing his view on *Uttarādhyayana Sūtra* xxiii, 11 ff.

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² *Sū. kr.* iv, 2, and Jain, *Life in Ancient India According to the Jaina Canon*, pp. 199–202.

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Whether celibate or not, it would seem that the Ājīvika mendicant was by no means continuously engaged in austerities. Besides those describing his begging and ascetic practices, and the more reprehensible activities attributed to him, there are a number of references which show the Ājīvika monk playing a comparatively active part in everyday life. The *Majjhima*,³ for instance, tells of Pāṇḍuputta, the son of a wagon-maker,⁴ an Ājīvika ascetic of Rājagaha. This man was seen by the *bhikkhu* Mahāmoggalāna, standing in a wagon-maker's shop, and intently watching the making of a felloe. When the wheelwright had finished his work the Ājīvika is said to have cried out with joy at the excellence of the workmanship. His asceticism had by no means destroyed his interest in his hereditary trade, and he may be taken as a type of his fellow Ājīvikas.

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³ *Majjh.* i, p. 31.

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⁴ *Purāṇa-yānakāra-putta* suggests a repairer of old carts, perhaps a village wheelwright.

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The Ājīvika seems frequently to have been an astrologer or fortune-teller. *Nakkhatta Jātaka*¹ tells the story of an Ājīvika regularly dependent on a certain family for support (*kulūpaka*), who was consulted about the most propitious date for a wedding after the preliminary preparations had already been made, and who caused it to be postponed in his annoyance. A similar *kulūpaga* Ājīvika was attached to the court of King Bindusāra, and correctly prophesied Aśoka’s greatness.² The ascetics of both sexes who appear so frequently in later literature from the *Arthaśāstra* onwards as spies, confidential agents, matchmakers, and fortune-tellers, may have included Ājīvikas among their number.

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¹ *Jāt.* i, p. 257.

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² *Mahāvamsa* Comm. i, p. 190. *Divyāvadāna* pp. 370 ff. V. infra, pp. 146-47.

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