History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c15.s5.1

c15.s5.1

The Pāli texts contain many strictures upon Ājīvika ascetics, and they are generally described as being foolish, repulsive, and hypocritical. In the *Majjhima* the Buddha is said to have told the wanderer Vacchagotta that no Ājīvika had ever "made an end of sorrow" on his death, and that in the ninety-one *kalpas* of his previous births he remembered but one Ājīvika who had been reborn in heaven.¹ The latter was a believer in *karma* and in the efficiency of works, and therefore was not an orthodox follower of Makkhali Gosāla.