History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c18.1

c18.1

The Ājīvikas maintained themselves in the Dravidian-speaking part of India in a more flourishing condition than in the North, and survived in the Tamil country until at least the fourteenth century. This fact may be established on very solid evidence: firstly by a number of inscriptions mentioning the Ājīvikas, and covering a period of nearly a millennium; secondly by the three Tamil religious texts, *Maṇimēkalai*, *Nīlakēci*, and *Civañāṇa-cittiyār*, of widely differing date, each of which gives an outline of Ājīvika doctrine from the Buddhist, Jaina, and Śaivite standpoints respectively; and thirdly by a number of shorter references in other Tamil and Canarese works.