History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c15.s5.21

c15.s5.21

This story may be the traditional explanation of a hardening and worsening of relations between the two sects, which perhaps took place in the Buddha’s lifetime. Its implication is that the breach arose from the discourteous conduct of the Ājīvikas. Perhaps the latter, with their sterner discipline, began to ridicule the easy-going Buddhists, and the growth of mutual recriminations and of sarcastic attacks on both sides, led to the ostracism of the Ājīvikas by the Buddhist order. The incident of the Ājīvika who declared the Buddha to be a “shaven householder” is not the only such case recorded in Buddhist literature. The Vinaya also mentions a company of Ājīvika laymen who mocked a group of bhikkhus in an unnamed park, because the latter were carrying sunshades. The Ājīvikas are said to have derided the bhikkhus before the Buddhist laymen to whom they were talking, saying that they looked like officials of the treasury (gaṇaka-mahāmattā), and were “bhikkhus who were not bhikkhus” (bhikkhū na bhikkhū).²