History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c15.s3.16

c15.s3.16

Of the eight items in the lists of *pāṇagāim* and *apāṇagāim* the last, the penance of the "pure drink", seems to include the other seven. Despite Abhayadeva's definition,¹ the four drinkables in the first list cannot have been the usual beverages of the Ājīvika, for in his argument with Adda Gosāla maintains that there is no sin for the ascetic in drinking cold water.² By this he must have implied water from any normal source of supply. In most respects Ājīvika dietary practice seems to have been less strict than that of the Jainas, and it cannot have included the insistence on the drinking of dirty or stale water only.