History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c16.s2.11

c16.s2.11

The Divyāvadāna gives another much more questionable story of Aśoka's relations with the Ājīvikas.² Aśoka, hearing that a nirgrantha in Puṇḍravardhana had defiled a picture or statue of the Buddha, ordered the destruction of all Ājīvikas in the locality, as a result of which order 18,000 were massacred in a single day. The same crime was later committed by another nirgrantha layman in Pāṭaliputra, in punishment of which the king offered a reward of a dīnāra for the head of every *nirgrantha* brought to him. This second wave of persecution led to the murder of the king’s younger brother, Prince Vitāśoka.