History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c18.s1.84

c18.s1.84

The absence of the tax in villages other than those mentioned may either be due to the fact that no Ājīvikas resided therein, or that they were not specially taxed. The latter alternative is more probable, since literary evidence indicates that Ājīvikas existed further south than the villages mentioned in the inscriptions, in Madurā and Malabar,³ and it is hardly likely that the Ājīvikas in the extreme south came by sea. We have no reason to believe that an Ājīvika tax was imposed there;