History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c23.s1.10

c23.s1.10

The *kammas* are divided into groups. There are five hundred, five, three, one, and one-half a *kamma*. On the first group of five hundred Buddhaghosa comments: "By mere sophistry he explains a useless heresy."³ The five are interpreted by Buddhaghosa as actions connected with the five senses, although he seems to prefer the alternative theory that the five are an appendage to the five hundred.⁴ The three, he states, are act, speech, and thought; the one is either act or word; and the half is thought. This interpretation is far from complete or satisfactory, but Buddhaghosa's explanation of the *addha-kamma* is supported by a passage in Yaśomitra's commentary to the *Abhidharma Kośa*.⁵ This implies that the Ājīvika disagrees with the Buddhist view of *kāma* as the covetous imaginings of the mind, and maintains that passions only arise from sensuous perceptions, and not from thought alone. With the Ājīvikas *kāma* was external to the man, with the Buddhists it was internal. On the Ājīvika theory, even the Buddha was liable to *kāma* with all its consequences, on looking at sense-objects. Thus thought could not be productive of such strong karmic effects as physical activity or the operation of the senses. This may account for the Ājīvika conception of the inactivity and silence of the Lord Markali,¹ and for the practice of penance in large jars,² perhaps to avoid the use of the senses, and hence the development of *kāma*.