History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c23.s1.72

c23.s1.72

*Nāgāvāsa*. Of these there are again 4,900. They must be, in Buddhaghosa's words *nāga-maṇḍala*, or regions of serpents. The evidence of the Jaina sources indicates that the Ājīvikas were interested in the *nāgas* of popular religion, who played a significant part in their mythology. Thus Gosāla compares himself to a gigantic serpent, destroying those who attack him.⁵ On the last night of the Ājīvika six months' fatal penance those ascetics who yield to the ministrations of the two gods, Puṇṇabhadda and Māṇibhadda, will not be emancipated but will "do the work of serpenthood".⁶ This cryptic phrase probably means that they will be reborn as serpents in one of the *nāgāvāsas*.