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History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s6: The Status of Makkhali Gosāla

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s6

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The Status of Makkhali Gosāla

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In the course of the *Bhagavatī Sūtra*’s account of his last days Gosāla is twice said to have claimed for himself the status of the twenty-fourth and last *tīrthaṅkara* of the current *Avasarpiṇī* age.² The terminology of the phrase is distinctly Jaina, and the same words might equally well be applied to Mahāvīra. The Ājīvika system of chronometry, outlined elsewhere in the *Bhagavatī*,³ makes no mention of the Jaina *Utsarpiṇī* and *Avasarpiṇī*, or phases of universal development and decline. Furthermore the Buddhist description of the Ājīvika *abhijātis*, or spiritual colours, places only three individuals, not twenty-four, in the highest rank.⁴ Yet Jainism and Ājīvikism were so close in their origins, that it is possible that the two held a theory of *tīrthaṅkaras* in common. It is unlikely that the Ājīvikas, with their doctrine of immensely long *mahākalpas*, were content with only three *tīrthaṅkaras*, and twenty-four seems a more probable figure.

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² V. supra, pp. 64, 68.

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³ V. supra, pp. 253–54.

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⁴ V. supra, pp. 243 ff.

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Whatever the total number of *tīrthaṅkaras* it is evident that Gosāla enjoyed a status among his followers comparable to that of Mahāvīra among the Jainas, and was treated with great respect. Like Mahāvīra, he seems to have been considered omniscient by his devotees, for Ayampula, who visited him in his last delirium, refers to him as such.⁵ Already in the

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⁵ V. supra, p. 62.

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'loko lokālokaś ca, sad asat sadasat. Naya-cintāyāṃ dravy’-astikam paryāyāstikam ubhayāstikam ca. Tatas tribhi rāśibhiś carant’ iti Trairāśikāḥ. Nandi comm., fol. 113, quoted Weber Verzeichniss, ii, p. 685. Cf. Samavāya comm., fol. 129.

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*Bhagavatī Sūtra* certain pious Ājīvikas are referred to as *arihanta-devatā-gā*, which possibly implies that they invested their *arhants*, Makkhali and others, with divine status.¹

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¹ *Bh. Sū.* viii, sū. 329, fol. 369. V. supra, p. 140.

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The earliest of our Tamil sources, *Maṇimēkalai*, mentions Maṛkali only as the author of the Ājīvika scriptures. *Civañāṉa-cittiyār* refers to him as omniscient,² and the commentator Tattuvappirakācar describes him as the *arukaṉ* or *arhant*. The latter text does not mention him by name, but it is evident that only Maṛkali can be meant. In these two sources his status is still that of a Jaina *tīrthaṅkara*.

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² *Civañāṉa-cittiyār*, *NC.* p. 255, v. 2.

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*Nilakēci*, however, seems to represent another school of Ājīvikism, wherein the hagiology has become a theology. Maṛkali, the *Āptaṉ*, is, as in the other sources, the all-knowing Lord. He is perfectly motionless and silent, lest he injure minute living creatures by his speech.³ He is free from age and decay, his form is incomprehensible (*terivill-uruvam*), and he is like the rainbow.⁴ Yet he seems to be by no means completely removed from his followers, as were the Jaina *arhants*, but to appear to them from time to time, as unexpectedly and unpredictably as the rainbow,⁵ if we are to accept Vāmaṇamuni’s very probable interpretation of the obscure passage in the text. The latter also refers to Maṛkali as *tēvaṉ*, the God. With this we must compare the verse quoted by the Jaina commentator Malliṣeṇa, which declared that the Ājīvikas believe that the *tīrthaṅkaras* return to earth when their doctrine is in danger.⁶

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³ *Nil.*, 672.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, v. 673.

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⁵ *Ibid.*, v. 673, *terivill-uruvam*... *tonrum*. Comm. to above.

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⁶ *Syādvādamañjarī*, p. 105.

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The *Vāyu Purāṇa* shows us Ājīvikas worshipping *Piśācas* with costly ceremonies,⁷ while *Nilakēci* depicts Maṛkali as a sort of god, manifesting himself to his devotees in sudden and brilliant theophanies. Both Śīlāṅka and Malliṣeṇa, as well as the *Civañāṉa-cittiyār* suggest that, like Viṣṇu, he was thought of as occasionally performing *avatāras*.⁸ We have here evidence of a school of Ājīvikism which had developed a devotional cult, which may have had much in common with the less orthodox sects of Vaiṣṇavism, such as the Pāñcarātras.⁹

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⁷ *V. supra*., pp. 162 ff.

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⁸ *V. supra*, p. 260.

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⁹ *V. supra*, p. 260.

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The Ājīvikism represented by *Maṇimēkalai*, and also by *Civañāṇa-cittiyār*, if we exclude the verse of the latter text referred to above, would seem to be that of a purer school, wherein the importance of Maṅkali is like that of Mahāvīra in Jainism and of Buddha in Hīnayāna Buddhism. The more orthodox terminology in the latter text, for instance the employment of the word *viṇai*, or *karma*,¹ and the absence of emphasis on determinism in this, the most recent connected account of Ājīvika teaching, suggest that one branch of the small Ājīvika community was in the fourteenth century merging with the Jainas. This is the substratum of truth in Hoernle’s theory, that the Ājīvikas and Digambaras were identical, and is the basis of the belief of such Tamil scholars as Schomerus, who, quoting Pope, believed that the Ājīvika atomic doctrines expressed in *Civañāṇa-cittiyār* were the product of an heretical Jaina sect.² We have reason to believe that other Ājīvikas were, from the days of Utpala onwards,³ drawing close to Vaiṣṇavism. No doubt the last followers of Makkhali Gosāla, the heretic of Sāvatthi, forgot their master for either Kṛṣṇa or Mahāvīra, according to the branch of Ājīvikism to which they belonged.

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¹ V. supra, pp. 238–39, 266.

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² *Der Śaivasiddhanta*, pp. 104–5.

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³ V. supra, pp. 168 ff.

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