History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c17.s1.42

c17.s1.42

This argument falls to the ground when it is recognized that the terms *ājīvika* and *maskarin* are not, as Bhandarkar assumes, synonymous.² In its wide connotation the latter term might be applied to the Vaiṣṇavite beggar with his single staff, to the Śaivite with his triple staff, to the staff-bearing Ājīvika, perhaps even to the Digambara Jaina, who also carried a staff, and no doubt to many nondescript religious mendicants who habitually carried staves. It seems, however, that the term *maskarin* was most frequently applied to the Śaivite ascetic. For example the *Harṣacarita* introduces a *maskarin* who comes as a messenger from the great Śaivite ascetic Bhairavācārya to the court of Harṣa’s ancestor Puṣyabhūti. His figure is graphically described by Bāṇa, and has few characteristics in common with the Ājīvika. He wears a ragged robe, which is stained red; he has a skull, which he uses as a begging bowl and stores in a box of *kharjūra* wood; and he possesses various other articles which hang from a pole over his shoulder. He is evidently a Śaivite like his master.³