History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s6.12

c24.s6.12

*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