History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c23.s5: Maṇḍala-mokṣa

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c23.s5

Language: English

Maṇḍala-mokṣa

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Time for the Ājīvika seems to have been infinite, containing an incalculable number of *mahāmāṇasa* periods. But the time spent by the soul during its passage through *saṃsāra* was finite, and limited to one *mahāmāṇasa*, or 8,400,000 *mahākappas*. “*Saṃsāra* is measured as with a bushel, with its joy and sorrow and its appointed end.”³ The soul passes through *saṃsāra*, and, after being reborn in many forms and conditions, and in various regions of the universe in regular and rigidly unalterable order; after passing seven times from one human body to another without dying; and after performing the suicidal penance of six months’ duration, it may reach the state of bliss beyond *saṃsāra*. It would seem, from an obscure passage in the *Bhagavatī*, that souls were sometimes fated by Niyati to reach the very threshold of the blessed state, only to fall and resume their wanderings through the cosmos. In the description of the final penance it is stated that on the last night of the ascetic’s life the gods Punnabhadda and Māṇibhadda descend and caress his limbs with their cool hands; if he resists or ignores their attentions he will be released from *saṃsāra*, his body consumed by spontaneous combustion; if he submits to them, he will “further the work of serpenthood” (*āsīvisattāe kammam pakareti*).⁴

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³ V. supra, p. 14.

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⁴ Bh. Sū. xv, sū. 554, fol. 680. V. supra, p. 128.

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On the subjective and everyday level of truth this ordeal is the last test of the ascetic's resolution. On the brink of death from thirst and starvation he must resist the divine ministrants, and still maintain his stern self-control. Otherwise his life of penance and asceticism will have been fruitless, and he will be reborn in one of the 4,900 worlds of nāgas. This is the only interpretation which we can place upon the strange phrase of the Sūtra.

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From the ultimate and absolute point of view the decision whether or not to resist the caresses of the devas is not in the ascetic's hands. His rebirth as a serpent, or his salvation, are determined by Niyati. The passage suggests that, within the period of 8,400,000 mahākappas during which it passed through saṃsāra, the soul was thought to be destined to perform several cycles in regular order, passing through the rigidly fixed series of births, only at the last moment to yield to the devas, fall back, and repeat the dreary process. At the very end of its destined span it would resist, and be freed from birth and death.

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Thus by the dispensation of Niyati the ultimate salvation of all souls was assured, and thus the gloomy reaches of Gosāla's cosmos were lighted by a faint gleam of optimism. This has been stressed by Barua, anxious to present his "Pre-Buddhistie Indian Philosophers" in the most favourable light possible.¹ But the doctrine that all beings reach ultimate and inevitable perfection raises certain awkward questions, which must have occurred both to the friends and the opponents of Ājīvika fatalism. If all souls are ultimately removed from the material universe of saṃsāra what becomes of that universe? Either it remains uninhabited, or it is absorbed in some sort of pralaya, or new souls must be continually coming into being to replace those entering nirvāṇa. Again, if the period of the soul's existence in the universe is 8,400,000 mahākappas, a time unconscionably long, but certainly not infinite, the soul's existence must have had a beginning. Either at the beginning of its course in the cosmos it was created out of absolute nothingness, or it was in some way injected into the universe from the ground or substratum underlying space and time, to which it returns on its nirvāṇa.

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¹ Pre-Buddhistie Indian Philosophy, pp. 316-17.

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Such problems as these were tackled by Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina theologians, and, we may infer, by the Ājīvikas also. While we have little direct evidence that such questions were ever posed by the Ājīvikas, a new doctrine indicates that they did arise in the Ājīvika community, and were solved to the sect's satisfaction. The new doctrine is that called in *Nilakēci Maṇḍala-mokṣa*, or cyclic salvation. It appears to have emerged some time after the death of Gosāla, and to have been held especially by the Dravidian Ājīvikas.

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It is first mentioned in the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga*: "It is said by some that the sinless soul is pure, but will again become sinful through pleasure and hatred. He who here has been a restrained monk afterwards becomes sinless. As pure water free from defilement becomes again defiled (so does he again become sinful)." ¹

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¹ *Suddhe apāvae āyā iham egesim āhiyam*

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On these verses Śīlāṅka comments that the Trairāśika followers of Gosāla are meant.² He interprets the verses as meaning that the blessed souls in a state of *mokṣa* are still conscious of the affairs of the world. They are liable to feel triumph and joy at the victories of the faith, and anger and hatred when it is in danger. Hence they again fall back into *saṃsāra*.³ Hoernle believed that the verses referred to the Jaina *arhants* from the Ājīvika point of view.⁴ This seems certainly to be a false interpretation, for other sources explicitly state a doctrine of *maṇḍala-mokṣa*, to which this verse and Śīlāṅka’s commentary closely correspond.

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² *V. supra*, pp 175 ff.

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³ *c’ ōpalabhya . . .* Śīlāṅka, to *Sū. Kr.*, loc. cit.

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⁴ *ERE.* i, p. 264.

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It is thus clear that for some Ājīvika schools at any rate, *nirvāṇa* was not the end. Sin penetrated even beyond the bounds of the universe, and was still liable to drag back the emancipated soul for another round of 8,400,000 *mahākappas* in *saṃsāra*.

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This doctrine is not elsewhere mentioned in the Pāli or Jaina Prākrit texts, and seems to have loomed large in the minds of the earlier Ājīvikas. But it became an important feature of the doctrines of the Dravidian sect, and is referred to by two of our three main Tamil sources.

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*Puṇo kiḍḍā padoṣeṇam so tattha avarajjhaï.*
*Iha saṃvuḍe muṇī jāe pacchā hoï apāvae,*
*Viyaḍ-ambu jahā bhujjo nīrayam sarayam tahā.*

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Sū. kr. i, 1, 3, 11–12, fol. 45.

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*Nilakēci* states explicitly that the doctrine of *maṇḍala*, the return of souls from the highest bliss, was devised in face of the objections we have suggested above to the older Ājīvika cosmic theories. In a given place there is a limited number (of souls), and so by devising (the doctrine of) *maṇḍala* the Ājīvikas remove objections, bringing back (the saved souls).¹ The elliptical verse is much expanded by the commentator Vāmanamuni, who makes it clear that the Ājīvikas postulated the doctrine to allow for the continuity of the universe. But for that purpose, he continues, it is quite unnecessary, for the number of *jīvas* or living souls in the universe is infinitely infinite (*anantānantam*), and no subtraction from the total can make it less than infinity. The Jaina commentator’s logic is sound, but we have no confirmation that the Ājīvikas did actually believe that the number of souls in the universe was infinite. The sharply defined and classified nature of the Ājīvika cosmos, and the Ājīvika predilection for very high numbers, suggest that the total number of souls in the universe was considered to be finite, as the Jaina commentator’s insistence on the infinity of souls also indicates.

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¹ *En tanai-y ākki-y iṭavakai-y uṭ poruḷ īru colli maṇṭalam ākki maruttuṇ koṇarum. Nil. v. 716.*

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*Civañāṇa-cittiyār* contains what seems to be a further refinement of the same doctrine. There are two classes of *arhant*, called *maṇṭalar* (Skt. *maṇḍala*) and *cempōtakar* (Skt. *sambodhaka*), of whom the former return to earth and reveal the scriptures.² This theory would seem to be that mentioned in the verse quoted by Malliṣeṇa, in which the Ājīvika *tīrthaṅkaras* are said to return to earth when the religion is in danger.³ The doctrine may be that implied in Buddhaghosa’s classification of the seventh and eighth of the stages of man, wherein the *jina-bhūmi* is below the *pañña-bhūmi*, whose occupants do not speak at all.⁴

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² *Civañāṇa-cittiyār*, *parapakkam*, *Ājīvaka-cittāntam*, v. 7; varu-pāṉmaiyar ivar *Civañāṇa-cittiyār*, *parapakkam*, *Ājīvaka-cittāntam*, p. 269, v. 2.

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Thus the Ājīvikas seem to have developed from the doctrine of *maṇḍala-mokṣa* the tenet that the great teachers of the faith performed from time to time an *avatāra* in order to restore the true scriptures and the pure doctrine. The Ājīvika *nirvāṇa* seems to have been far less rarefied than that of the other sects. Here too *Niyati* held sway, and would from time to time drive souls back to the universe in order to restore the prescribed total of souls in *saṃsāra*. But according to *Civañāṇa-cittiyār* some of the liberated souls had somehow become free of the liability to return. They were the *sambodhaka*, beings completely outside the universe, whose status in this respect resembles that of the Jaina *tīrthaṅkaras*. The *maṇḍalar*, on the other hand, remind us of the Vaiṣṇavite *avatāras*, and the Mahāyāna Buddhist *bodhisattvas*.

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Our picture is by no means complete, but it shows that the Ājīvika *nirvāṇa* differed from that conceived by more orthodox sects. The supreme state of bliss did not entirely transcend the affairs of the world, and was still subject to *Niyati*. It was in fact little different from the other sects' conception of the highest heaven. This fact may throw light on the surprising statement of Śīlāṅka, who, writing surely with full knowledge of the Jaina attacks on Ājīvika antinomianism and immorality, states in his commentary to the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* that the followers of Gosāla are called Vainayikas ¹; these, he declares elsewhere, desire the attainment of salvation in heaven, from good conduct alone.² The phrase *svarga-mokṣa* perhaps indicates that the Jaina looked on the Ājīvika *nirvāṇa* as comparable to his own heaven. It will be remembered that both the *Aupapātika Sūtra* and the Jaina commentator Mādhavacandra promise the Ājīvika ascetic an abode in the highest Jaina heaven of Acyuta-kalpa.³ This seems to indicate that the Jaina metaphysicians believed that the state which the Ājīvikas fondly imagined to be the highest was actually a lower and less rarefied paradise. The same view appears to have been held by Buddhaghosa, who states that *brāhmaṇas*, *tāpasas*, *paribbājakas*, and Ājīvikas held the heavens of Brahma-loka, Abhassarā, Subhakiṇhā, and Anantamānasa respectively to be the highest state (*niṭṭhā*). Buddhaghosa adds that all these ascetics believed to be complete emancipation what in fact was only arahat-ship.⁴

Linked texts (6)

Nīlakēci — Tamil
Sūyagaḍa — Sudharman, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit
சிவஞானசித்தியார் — Aruḷnanti Civācāriyār, Tamil
Uvavāiya — Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit
Majjhimanikāya — Pāli
Viyāhapannatti — Sudharman, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit