History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c23.s1.89

c23.s1.89

The *Bhagavatī Sūtra* throws some further light on these obscure categories, and must modify our interpretation. Here Gosāla is said to have maintained that before its final release the soul must pass through seven divine (births), seven *sañjūhe*, and seven conscious births, using for the latter the same phrase as the Pāli text, *sanni-gabbhe*.² The first group of seven is interpreted by the commentator Abhayadeva as existences as a god, the second as existences in the seven *samyūthas* or groups (of demigod), and the third as human existences. These lives, as Gosāla himself explains later in the *Sūtra*, will all be lived at intervals by the soul nearing salvation.³