History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c18.s1.60

c18.s1.60

As Chakravarti has noticed, the Ājīvika tax is usually mentioned together with a number of trade taxes, including those on the low-caste leather-workers and oil-pressers. Moreover, the Tiruvorriyūr and Paḍaveḍu inscriptions⁶ mention the tax with that on the *Uvaccas*. The latter term is sometimes used in Tamil for Muslim settlers, and it was interpreted in this sense by Hultzsch.¹ It may also mean the low-caste temple-drummers of the sect of Kālī.² In either sense the term indicates unorthodoxy, and that the Ājīvika should have been placed beside the Uvacca indicates that both were looked upon as unorthodox. The juxtaposition of the Ājīvika, the leather-worker, the oil-presser, and the weaver in other inscriptions is also significant, and perhaps indicate that the Ājīvikas were treated as a caste, following one dominant occupation. The close connection in earlier times between Ājīvikas and potters and their wares³ suggests that pottery was their traditional craft, and it is perhaps significant that the relevant inscriptions do not elsewhere mention taxes on potters. On the other hand the considerable fund of taxable wealth which they must have possessed, and the dislike which seems to have been felt for them, suggest that they may have been moneylenders or money-changers.⁴