History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c19.27

c19.27

These ascetics, whoever they were, clearly objected to the graphic or plastic representation of supernatural beings. We have no definite evidence that the Ājīvikas held such views, but the *Divyâvadāna’s* account of the Ājīvika or Nirgrantha who defiled a picture of the Buddha faintly suggests it.⁵ The story of Gosāla’s giving away his picture-board,¹ on abandoning the career of a *maṅkha*, may be a trace of an incident in the founder’s life which led to iconoclastic tendencies in the sect. If these feeble indications that the Ājīvikas opposed the use of religious images were the only argument in favour of their identity with Harṣa’s *nagn’-āṭakas* the evidence would be very weak indeed. There are, however, a number of other faint indications and resemblances which, if taken together, strengthen the probability.