History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c15.s2.22

c15.s2.22

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.