History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s3.11

c24.s3.11

The term aṭṭhaṃso is rendered "octagonal" in the English translation of the text.² No corresponding word or phrase occurs in the Tamil source; and it will be seen that it involves contradiction, since the soul is in the next word said to be guḷa-parimaṇḍalo, which must mean "round like a ball". The commentary to the Petavatthu tries to solve the paradox by explaining that according to this theory the soul is sometimes octagonal and sometimes circular.³ The commentary further states that the immense size of the jīva is found only in souls in their last stage before nirvāṇa.⁴ It is possible that the author of Nīlakēci intended to express this by the nall' (good), which is prefixed to the word uyir in the relevant verse.⁵ A further contradiction is to be found in the Pāli reference in the word -aṃso, which implies divisibility, while in the same line the soul is said to be indivisible (acchejjabhejjo). The Ājīvika soul theory is so strange that it may indeed have included these paradoxes, but since they are only to be found in one source they must be accepted with great caution.