History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c19.37

c19.37

The phrase *rugna-nagn’-āṭaka* used by Kalhaṇa may be compared to the phrases *nagna-bhagna* and *nagga-bhogga*, to which reference has already been made.¹ Unless these ascetics suffered from a disease such as leprosy they must have been ritually mutilated in some way. This suggests the Ājīvika initiation referred to in the *Jātaka*,² in which the novice had to grasp a heated lump of metal. Such an ordeal, if sufficiently protracted, might well fit the ascetic for Kalhaṇa’s epithet *śīrṇa- . . . pāṇi*. The same ceremony may also be connected with the name of Harṣa’s evil genius, Loṣṭadhara. From the name of his grandfather, Haladhara, he appears to have come from an orthodox Vaiṣṇavite family, but his own name ("Lump-holder") is very unusual, if not unique. Was this name connected with an initiatory ordeal, and adopted by its owner to mark his adherence to Ājīvikism?