History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s5.7

c24.s5.7

The Ājīvikas thus seem to have accepted the basic principle of Jaina epistemology, without going to the over-refined extreme of *saptabhaṅgi*, as in the orthodox Jaina *syādvāda* and *nayavāda*. The Ājivika postulate of a third possibility, neither being nor not being, must have formed a convenient logical basis for the unusual doctrine that some souls were compelled to return even from *nirvāṇa*.¹ These would be classified in the third category, *sadasat*—emancipated from *saṃsāra* and yet not emancipated.