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History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c17.s3: Śīlāṅka and the Trairāśikas

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c17.s3

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Śīlāṅka and the Trairāśikas

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Like Utpala, Śīlāṅka, the ninth century¹ commentator to the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga*, seems to have been in some confusion about the Ājīvikas. He had a sound understanding of *niyativāda*,² a cardinal doctrine of the Ājīvikas, which was attributed by the later Jaina commentator Guṇaratna to Pūraṇa,³ who was remembered as a prophet by the Southern Ājīvikas.⁴ On the other hand Śīlāṅka does not associate the *Niyati* doctrine with Gosāla, with Pūraṇa, or with Ājīvikism. He recognizes one significant teaching of later Ājīvikism, the doctrine of *maṇḍala-mokṣa*,⁵ which he correctly attributes to the followers of Gosāla; but besides this he states in another context that the Ājīvikas believe in the doctrine of salvation by good conduct (*vinayavāda*), and he associates them with the Digambara Jainas and with the lesser Jaina schism of the Trairāśikas.

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¹ Glasenapp, *Der Jainismus*, p. 107.

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² V. infra, pp. 230 ff.

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³ V. supra, p. 81.

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⁴ V. supra, p. 80.

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⁵ V. infra, p. 259.

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The relevant references in Śīlāṅka’s commentary are quoted below:—

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1. The text refers to Mahāvīra as having understood the doctrines of the *Kriyāvādins*, *Akriyāvādins*, *Vainayikas*, and *Ajñānavādins*. On the third of these schools Śīlāṅka comments: “Saying ‘Salvation comes only from good conduct’, the followers of the doctrine of Gosālaka walk in the path of good conduct, and are hence termed Vainayikas.”⁶ 2. On another passage, which describes certain ascetics who revile the monk leading a righteous life, Śīlāṅka comments with an ambiguous phrase which has formed the basis of an important theory of Hoernle’s: “They are the Ājīvikas who follow the doctrine of Gośāla, or Digambaras.” ¹

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⁶ *Vinayād eva mokṣa ity evam Gosālaka-mat’-ānusāriṇo vinayena carant’ iti Vainayikā vyavasthitāḥ*. To *Sū. kr.* i, 6, 27, fol. 152.

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¹ *Te ca Gośālaka-mat’-ānusāriṇa Ājīvikā Digambarā vā.* Ibid., to i, 3, 3, 8, fol. 90.

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3. He uses a similar phrase when commenting on a verse describing the best means of converting the heretical opponents of Jainism: “They are the Ājīvikas, etc., who follow the doctrine of Gośāla, or Boṭikas (i.e. Digambaras).” ²

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² *Te Gośālaka-mat’-ānusāriṇa Ājīvik’-ādayaḥ (sic) Boṭikā vā.* Ibid., to i, 3, 3, 14, fol. 92.

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4. On the theory that the soul freed from *karma* may yet become defiled and return to *saṃsāra*, Śīlāṅka states that the view is held by “the Trairāśikas, who follow the doctrine of Gośāla, and who have twenty-one *sūtras*, arranged according to the order of the Trairāśika *sūtras* in the *Pūrvas*.” ³

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³ *Trairāśikā Gośālaka-mat’-ānusāriṇo, yeṣāṃ ekaviṃśati sūtrāṇi Pūrva-gata-trairāśika-sūtra-paripāṭyā vyavasthitāni.* To Sū. kr. i, 1, 3, 11, fol. 45.

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The second and fourth of these references have been used by Hoernle to further his theory that the later Ājīvikas merged with the Digambara Jainas. He writes: “Śīlāṅka states that the reference is to the Ājīvikas or Digambaras. Seeing that, in his comment on another passage of the same work, he identifies . . . the Ājīvikas with the Terāsiyas (Sanskr. Trairāśikas), it follows that in Śīlāṅka’s view the followers of Gosāla, the Ājīvikas, the Terāsiyas, and the Digambaras were the same class of religious mendicants.” ⁴

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⁴ *ERE.* i, p. 262.

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We do not believe that these references are more conclusive as proofs of the merging of the Ājīvikas and the Digambaras than is the dubious statement of Utpala as proof of the merging of the Ājīvikas and the Vaiṣṇavites. Hoernle notes only two of the references; on a careful examination of all of them it may be necessary to modify his theory.

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In the second phrase, Hoernle has interpreted the conjunction *vā* in the sense of “i.e.” It is doubtful if the particle was ever used in Sanskrit, as is “or” in English, in this sense, to denote the synonymity of two or more words or phrases. We admit that Śīlāṅka, by the use of the word *vā*, indicated that the Ājīvikas were "of the same class of religious mendicants as the Digambaras". But the text of the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* plainly shows that the class implied by Śīlāṅka was a very wide one, comprising all those who revile the righteous Śvetāmbara monk. The third phrase makes the position clearer. Here Śīlāṅka makes separate mention of the Boṭikas or Digambaras, who are not included among the miscellaneous ascetics represented by the word *ādayaḥ*, appended to *Ājīvika*. The adjective *Gośālaka-mat’-ānusāriṇa* may apply only to the first, or to both, of the two nouns, but in view of the word *ādayaḥ*, it would seem that Śīlāṅka intended it to apply to the first; otherwise he would have added this word to *Boṭika-* instead of to *Ājīvika-*. Thus it appears that he did not look on the Boṭika as a follower of Gosāla, and made a clear distinction between the two sects. If any doubts remain they are removed by a fifth phrase of Śīlāṅka, on a verse condemning the dietary habits of non-Jaina ascetics, which, he states, is "a description of the evil conduct of Ājīvikas, etc., followers of other doctrines, and Digambaras".¹ In this phrase, not noticed by Hoernle, the conjunction *ca* is used in place of the ambiguous *vā*.

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¹ *Ājīvikādīnām paratīrthikānām Digambarāṇām c’ asadācāra-nirūpaṇāya*. Śīlāṅka to *Sū. kr.* i, 3, 3, 12, fol. 91.

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His use of the word *ādayaḥ* indicates that Śīlāṅka knew of more than one sect of followers of Gosāla, and that the term Ājīvika was not regularly used by all his followers. We shall see in our second part that differences of doctrine developed within the Ājīvika community, small though it was.² Is it possible that the Vainayikas, called by Śīlāṅka followers of Gosāla,³ but not referred to as Ājīvikas, were one such schism? Śīlāṅka declares in another context that the Vainayikas seek a rebirth in heaven (not complete salvation or *mokṣa*, as in the first reference quoted above), by fourfold good conduct, in mind, word, body, and in giving towards gods, kings, ascetics, kinsfolk, elders, inferiors, mother, and father—a total of thirty-two categories.⁴ The same statement concerning the Vinayavādins is made by the later commentator Guṇaratna, but he includes among their teachers such famous names as Vasiṣṭha, Vālmīki, and Vyāsa,¹ as well as Parāśara, who is elsewhere said by Guṇaratna to have taught a doctrine of natural evolution²; and he nowhere connects them with Gosāla or with the Ājīvikas. The doctrines of Gosāla are often obscure; it is true that the Ājīvikas were frequently accused by their opponents of antinomianism and immorality, but perhaps their ethics were not in most respects less strict than those of other sects of the time; yet, even after making the utmost allowance for the *odium theologicum* of their opponents, it seems unlikely that the average follower of Gosāla’s doctrines placed so strong an emphasis on ethics as Śīlāṅka suggests. Unless Śīlāṅka was mistaken we can only explain this puzzling reference by suggesting that the Vinayavādins or Vainayikas were a later sect, which perhaps arose as a schism of the Ājīvikas, and which, while maintaining very different doctrines, yet remembered Gosāla with respect. If it be admitted, on the strength of Utpala’s statement and of other less definite suggestions, that some of the Ājīvikas drifted towards unorthodox Vaiṣṇavism, we may tentatively identify these with the Vinayavādins, and thus also account for the statement of Guṇaratna that the latter revered the saints of Purāṇic legend. Thus we may also account for the difficult -ādayaḥ in the third phrase of Śīlāṅka quoted above.

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² V. infra, pp. 279-80.

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³ V. supra, p. 174.

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⁴ *Vainayikānām vinayād eva kevalāt paralokam ap’ icchatām dvātriṃśad anena prakrameṇa yojyāḥ : tad yathā sura-nṛpati-yati-jñāti-sthavir’-adhama-mātṛ-pitṛ-kāyena dānena ca caturvidho vinayo vidheyaḥ*. To 209. Cf. infra, p. 261, n. 2.

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¹ [Text missing in original]

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² [Text missing in original]

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In Śīlāṅka’s fourth phrase the false prophet is said to be the leader of the Trairāśikas. A sect of Trairāśikas, a schism of the Jaina community, is well known in early Jaina literature, and is said to have been founded in the city of Antariñjikā by the monk Rohagupta, in the 544th year of Mahāvīra’s *nirvāṇa*,³ or in A.D. 18, according to the traditional reckoning. The Trairāśikas held unorthodox views, resembling those of the Vaiśeṣika school of philosophy, on the fundamental categories of Indian metaphysics, and they admitted only three principles of predication, *sat*, *asat*, and *sadasat* as against the seven of Jaina logic.

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³ [Text missing in original]; il, quoted *Abh. Rāj.*, s.v. Terāsiya. V. also Guérinot, *La religion Djaina*, pp. 47-8. The *Kalpa Sūtra* (*Sthavirāvalī*, 6, ed. Jacobi, p. 80) makes Rohagupta a pupil of Mahāgiri, the eighth *sthavira*, and second after Bhadrabāhu. This tradition would date the origin of the Trairāśikas over 200 years earlier than would that of the *Avaśyaka Sūtra*.

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In the *Samavāyāṅga* Commentary¹ it is stated that the Ājīvikas were also called Trairāśikas, and held the three-category system of logic. It is nowhere stated that they maintained the Vaiśeṣika categories of the Rohagupta Trairāśikas. It is unlikely that a paṇḍit of the calibre of Śīlāṅka could have confused the latter with the Ājīvikas, although they too had a *trairāśika* system of logic, and perhaps other points of doctrine in common with the Trairāśikas of Rohagupta. The fact that the two sects were well known to have been founded by different teachers, living in periods five hundred years apart, should be sufficient to show that they were not, as Professor Hoernle believed, identical.

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¹ To *sū.* 147, fol. 130. V. infra, p. 179.

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In this connection the passage in the *Samavāya*,² commented on by Abhayadeva, is important. Both the text and the commentary are repeated almost verbatim in the *Nandi Sūtra*,³ with its commentary by Haribhadra. This passage purports to describe the *Dṛṣṭivāda*, the lost twelfth *aṅga* of the Jaina canon. That book appears to have been a comparison, in parallel passages, of the doctrines of orthodox Jainism with those of three heresies, the Ājīvika, the Catuṣkanayika, and the Trairāśika. The first part of this text was a description of the *parikammāim*, which the scholiasts define as the preparations necessary to grasp the meaning of the *sūtras* correctly. These *parikammas* were divided into seven groups, which were in turn divided into subsections. Their names are given as *siddha-seṇiyā-parikamme*, *maṇussa-*, *puṭṭha-*, *ogahaṇa-*, *uvasampajja-*, *vippajaha-*, and *cuyācuya-seṇiyā-parikamme*. The commentators seem to have had little knowledge of the true nature of these *parikammas*, and they need not detain us. Significant for our purpose is a passage in the text: "Six (of these *parikammas*) are orthodox, seven are Ājīvika, six are Catuṣkanayika, seven are Trairāśika."⁴ The Ājīvikas and the Trairāśikas are said to maintain the *cuyācuya-seṇiyā-parikamma*, which was not recognized by the orthodox Jainas, nor by the Catuṣkanayikas.

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² *Samavāya*, *sū.* 147, fol. 128 ff.

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³ *Nandi*, *sū.* 56, fol. 107 ff.

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⁴ *Cha sasamaïyāim, satta ājīviyāim, cha caukkaṇaïyāim, satta terāsiyāim.* *Samavāya*, fol. 128. The Bombay text has *satta . . . sasamaïyāim*, which is certainly a misprint, since it does not agree with the commentary, nor with Weber’s paraphrase (*IS.* xvi, p. 364). The *Nandi* (fol. 108) mentions only the last two, *cha caukkaṇaïyāim, satta terāsiyāim*.

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The sect of the Catuṣkanayikas seems to have differed from orthodox Jainism mainly in the fact that it compressed the orthodox seven *nayas* into four, omitting the first Jaina *naya* (*naigama*), and including it with the second or third (*saṅgraha* and *vyavahāra*), according to its reference to generals or particulars; and throwing the last three Jaina *nayas* (*sāmprata*, *samabhirūḍha*, and *evambhūta*) together, as being all three concerned with words. The four *nayas* or standpoints of the sect thus become:—

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1. *Saṅgraha*, predication from the general properties of a thing;
2. *Vyavahāra*, from its individual aspect;
3. *Ṛjusūtra*, from its momentary condition; and
4. *Śabdādi*, from the implication of the words used to designate it.¹

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¹ *Nandi Comm.*, fol. 113. *Samavāya Comm.*, fol. 129.

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It thus seems that the Catuṣkanayikas were a small sub-sect of the Jainas, with a somewhat unorthodox epistemology.

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In describing the three heresies the commentaries refer to the Ājīvika system as that propagated by Gosāla²; later, after dealing with the Catuṣkanayikas, it is stated that “the Ājīvikas are also called Trairāśikas”.³

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² *Gośālaka-pravartit’ājīvika-pākhaṇḍika-siddhānta*. *Samavāya*, *Comm.*, loc. cit.

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³ *Tā eva c’ Ājīvikās Trairāśikā bhaṇitāḥ*.

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The summary of the *Dṛṣṭivāda* continues with a description of the contents of its second part, *suttāim*. It is stated that the doctrines of all four sects are contained therein, and are repeated in the form of *sūtras* in both orthodox and heretical recensions. Each of the four sects has twenty-two *sūtras*, of which those of the orthodox are in the form of separate aphorisms (*chiṇṇa-cheaṇaāim*), while the Ājīvika *sūtras* are combined, and the *sūtras* of the Trairāśikas and the Catuṣkanayikas are arranged with reference to the three or four *nayas* of the respective sects.⁴ Here the Ājīvikas are again referred to as followers of Gosāla’s doctrines, and the Trairāśikas also are said to be called Ājīvikas.⁵

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⁴ *Samavāya Comm.*, fol. 130. *Nandi Comm.*, fol. 108. The *Nandi* declares that the Catuṣkanayikas are in accordance with orthodox usage.

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⁵ *Trairāśikā api Ājīvikā ucyante*.

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It is not made clear whether these four parts of the *sūtra* section of the *Dṛṣṭivāda* were written from the orthodox angle, as mere statements of the doctrines of the heresies, or whether they contained passages from authentic scriptures of the sects; the former alternative seems more probable. In either case the lost *Dṛṣṭivāda* must represent a stage in the history of Jainism when sectarian animosity was by no means as strong as it later became. Reasons for the regrettable disappearance of the work may be readily suggested.

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But although the four sects were akin they are nowhere said to have been identical. None of the statements contained in the *Samavāya* or the *Nandi*, or in their commentaries, justifies Hoernle’s view that the Ājīvikas and the Trairāśikas of Rohagupta were the same sect. We interpret them to mean that the Ājīvikas were sometimes also called Trairāśikas, because they maintained the doctrine of the three *nayas*. From one of the statements¹ it would appear that the Trairāśikas were also occasionally called Ājīvikas. The Rohagupta Trairāśikas, who had some points in common with the Ājīvikas and some with the Vaiśeṣikas, were probably in other respects much closer to Jaina orthodoxy than were the Ājīvikas of Gosāla’s sect. That the commentaries to the *Nandi* and *Samavāya* use the words “founded by Gosāla” only in respect of the Ājīvikas, and never of the Trairāśikas, also strongly suggests that the two were separate though in some respects similar. The Trairāśika sect of the Jaina church was founded by Rohagupta; but the Ājīvikas, who were also *trairāśikas* were founded by Gosāla. In using the phrase *Gosālaka-pravartita* the commentators seem to have been consciously trying to avoid any cause of confusion between the two communities.

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¹ V. supra, p. 179, n. 5.

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We are now in a position to understand a little better the fourth statement of Śīlāṅka quoted above,² which declares that the belief in return from *mokṣa* is held by the Trairāśika followers of Gosāla, who have twenty-one *sūtras* arranged according to the order of the Trairāśika *sūtras* in the *Pūrvas*. The last word probably refers to the fourteen *Pūrvas* of the original Jaina canon, which have long been lost. According to the *Samavāya* and the *Nandi*³ these were summarized in the third part of the *Dṛṣṭivāda*, called *Pūrvagatam*. Śīlāṅka seems to have confused this part with the second, which contained the sūtras of the four sects, unless indeed he looked upon the Dṛṣṭivāda as itself a Pūrva. He seems to have known of the Dṛṣṭivāda, but he disagrees with the Samavāya and the Nandi in attributing twenty-one sūtras to the Trairāśikas in place of twenty-two in the Samavāya and Nandi lists. Either Śīlāṅka did not know of these lists, or he was quoting from a defective memory. The best interpretation of his obscure phrase that we can offer is: "The Trairāśikas who follow Gosāla (i.e. the Ājīvikas, not the Rohagupta Trairāśikas) have sūtras arranged in the same way as are those of the Trairāśikas (i.e. the Rohagupta Trairāśikas) in the Pūrvas (i.e. the Dṛṣṭivāda)."

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² V. supra, p. 175.

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³ Loc. cit.

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