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History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c23.s3: The Six Inevitables

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c23.s3

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The Six Inevitables

c23.s3.1

Another Ājīvika doctrine of little apparent importance, and naïve in its simplicity and triteness, is that of the six inevitables (*anaïkkamaṇijjāim*). These six factors, inevitably accompanying all existence, are said to have been declared by Gosāla immediately after he and the six *disācaras* had codified the Ājīvika scriptures,⁵ and, if we accept the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*’s definition of them, say little for the profundity of those works. The six are: gain (*lābhaṃ*), loss (*alābhaṃ*), joy (*suhaṃ*), sorrow (*dukkhaṃ*), life (*jīviyaṃ*), and death (*maraṇaṃ*).

c23.s3.2

⁵ V. supra, p. 56.

c23.s3.3

It does not seem likely that these six were very important. Some of the Dravidian Ājīvikas, following the doctrine ascribed in the Dīgha to Pakudha Kaccāyana, certainly classed joy, sorrow, and life as atomic, together with the four material atoms.¹ We read nothing of a sixfold classification elsewhere. The nearest approach to such a classification occurs in the Civāñāṇa-cittiyār, wherein Fate (ūli) is said to produce wealth (pēru), poverty (ilavu), obstacles (i.e. misfortunes, iṭaiyūru), joy (inpam), separation (pirivu), dwelling in one place (irukkai), travel (vēr’ oru nāṭṭir cēral), old age (mūppu), and death (cātal).² These categories resemble those of the Bhagavatī Sūtra, but contain additions. We may infer that they derive from the same source as the anatikramaṇīyas of the Prākrit text; this may have been an Ājīvika hymn or popular poem, for the anatikramaṇīyas seem to possess no profound metaphysical significance.

c23.s3.4

¹ V. infra, pp. 262 ff.

c23.s3.5

² CÑC., p. 265, v. 9.

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