History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c17.s2.41

c17.s2.41

As with so many other references to the Ājīvikas, we cannot draw final conclusions from this quotation from Utpala. Certainly he believed that the Ājīvikas were Vaiṣṇavites. This conclusion may have been reached after the rule of thumb equation of Varāhamihira’s Ājīvika with Kālaka’s *ekadaṇḍin*, but it is possible that Utpala had heard something, perhaps at third or fourth hand, of the Dravidian Ājīvikas, some of whom had by this time become theistic in their outlook. From the space which Utpala devoted to the explanation of the term, it would seem that it was by now little known in North India. Thus this crucial reference provides, if nothing more, yet another indication of the lingering death which Ājīvikism was dying.