History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c15.s2.15

c15.s2.15

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.