History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s2.1

c24.s2.1

If we compare Ājīvika atomism with other Indian atomic theories we find significant agreements and differences. With the Jainas the atom (*paramāṇu*) is not differentiated according to elements; it is permanent and unchanging in its substance, but liable to change in its qualities. Atoms are susceptible to taste, smell, colour, and touch, and combine into aggregates or molecules (*skandha*). The atom is the minutest separable portion of the ultimate undifferentiated matter (*pudgala*), of which the universe is formed, and its classification by elements is not fundamental.¹ While differing from Ājīvika atomism in this very important respect, Jaina theory agrees in its tendency to conceive categories as material which by other sects are thought of as abstract or spiritual. Thus both *dharma* and *karma* are looked on by the Jainas as atomic.² But with the Jainas *jīva*, the soul, is not *paudgalika*, or material, and thus Ājīvikism goes further than Jainism in its materialism. For the Jaina *jīva* is *amūrta* and *arūpa*³; the Ājīvikas of the sect described in *Nīlakēci* certainly thought otherwise,⁴ and the inclusion of *jīva* as one of the elements in both Pakudha’s doctrine in the *Sāmañña-phala Sutta* and in all three Tamil sources indicates that it was generally looked on as material by all Ājīvikas.