History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c17.s3.28

c17.s3.28

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.