History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s1.4

c24.s1.4

The seven elements are described as unmanufactured (*akaṭā*); they are barren (*vañjhā*), which must imply that they do not multiply as do living beings; and they are as firm as mountains and as stable as pillars.³ They do not move nor develop nor affect one another.⁴ As a corollary all change is illusion—No man slays nor causes to slay.⁵ Thus Pakudha’s theory of the seven stable elements leads to the later Ājīvika doctrine of *avicalita-nityatvam*.