Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c25: Chapter XV. Conclusion

History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c25

Language
English

Contents

Chapter XV. Conclusion

Summary

c25.s1.1

In the preceding pages we have traced as far as we can the history and doctrines of the Ājīvikas. Great lacunae and serious uncertainties remain, but the main outlines of the story are clear.

c25.s1.2

Out of the philosophical ferment of the sixth century B.C. at least three unorthodox sects developed in the same region, all seeking more satisfying explanations of the cosmic mystery than those of sacrificial brāhmaṇism and the Upaniṣadic gnosis. These sects were built around the doctrines of Buddha, Mahāvīra, and Gosāla, about each of whom a great body of legend accumulated. From this unreliable material, it would seem that Gosāla was at one time closely associated with Mahāvīra, the Jaina tīrthaṅkara, but that later their partnership was broken. Closely allied to Gosāla were Pūraṇa Kassapa the antinomian, and probably Pakudha Kaccāyana the atomist, whose doctrines were adopted by the later Ājīvikas. Gosāla’s fatalism inspired the new sect, which developed around groups of naked wanderers, devoted to asceticism, but accused by their opponents of secret licentiousness. A vigorous lay community supported the Ājīvika sect, which held its own until the Mauryan period, when it appears to have reached its zenith and to have received the patronage of Aśoka and of his successor Daśaratha. After this, however, the Ājīvika community in Northern India dwindled rapidly, and soon became insignificant.

c25.s1.3

In South India it survived longer. Ājīvika ascetics reached the Tamil country probably in the Mauryan period, and the communities which they founded survived at least until the fourteenth century, though often heavily taxed by orthodox kings and village communities. The one fifteenth century reference of Vaidyanātha Dīkṣita is the last we hear of them.¹ We may infer that by this time or soon after they had ceased to exist.

c25.s1.4

¹ V. supra, p. 184. ² *JDL.* ii, pp. 79-80. ³ V. supra, pp. 262 ff.

Dr. Barua's Three Questions

c25.s2.1

In concluding his valuable paper on the Ājīvikas, Dr. B. M. Barua asks certain pertinent questions, which, though stated by the author to be two in number, are in fact three:—

c25.s2.2

“. . . The simultaneous process of absorption and assimilation which seems so largely accountable for the disappearance of the Ājīvikas involve (*sic*) two questions of far-reaching importance, which are:—

“(1) Where are the Ājīvikas who maintained their existence among the rival sects up till (*sic*) the fourteenth century A.D., if not later?

“(2) Is it that the Ājivika (*sic*) system dwindled into insignificance without enriching the systems which supplanted and supplemented it?

“Finally if it be admitted that truth never dies and that the Ājīvikas had a distinct message for Indian peoples, the history of the Ājīvikas cannot be concluded without a general reflection on the course of Indian history, nor can the historian discharge his true function without determining the place of the Ājīvikas in the general scheme of Indian history as a whole.”²

c25.s2.3

Dr. Barua's first question is quickly answered by all who have even cursorily examined the foregoing pages, or any other work on Ājīvikism. The Ājīvikas have ceased to exist. Answers to the second and third questions are less easy, but we conclude by attempting to give them. Our conclusions must be tentative, but we submit them as our own inferences from and interpretations of the facts which we have gathered.

The Influence of the Ājīvikas

c25.s3.1

It has already been suggested that two schools of thought or sub-sects existed within the Dravidian Ājīvika community. The first retained, with modifications, the seven element theory of the *Sāmañña-phala Sutta*.³ As far as we can gather it did not remember Pūraṇa Kassapa. In its later stages it seems to have adopted orthodox terminology,¹ and when we last hear of it it is apparently in the process of assimilation with Jainism.² This school is that referred to in Maṇimēkalai and in Civañāṉa-cittiyār.

c25.s3.2

¹ V. supra, pp. 238-39, 266, 277.

c25.s3.3

² V. supra, p. 277.

c25.s3.4

The second sub-sect had moved far from early Ājīvikism. It taught the existence of only five elements,³ and the theory of avicalita-nityatavam,⁴ which, in its collorary of the illusoriness of all phenomena, represents a step in the direction of monism. This school remembered the early teacher Pūraṇa,⁵ and believed that its founder, Maṛkali, was a divine being, manifesting visions of himself to his devotees and incarnating himself for the restoration of the Ājīvika faith.⁶ This is the Ājīvikism of Nīlakēci.

c25.s3.5

³ V. supra, p. 265.

c25.s3.6

⁴ V. supra, pp. 235 ff.

c25.s3.7

⁵ V. supra, pp. 80-81.

c25.s3.8

⁶ V. supra, p. 276.

c25.s3.9

These two schools may be compared to Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna Buddhism. The tendency towards monism, theism, and bhakti, which is evident in the later schools, both of Ājīvikism and Buddhism, was part of the profound religious and cultural movements at work in the India of the time, which culminated in the popular devotional Hinduism of the Middle Ages.

c25.s3.10

With the Ājīvikas that tendency may have manifested itself quite early, for it is already suggested in the Vāyu Purāṇa.⁷ As this branch of the sect decayed we may suggest that its members drew more and more closely to Vaiṣṇavism, with its similar doctrines of theism and avatāras. From Utpala’s commentary to Varāhamihira⁸ it seems that this process had commenced as early as the tenth century A.D.

c25.s3.11

⁷ V. supra, pp. 162 ff.

c25.s3.12

⁸ V. supra, pp. 168 ff.

c25.s3.13

It is likely that former Ājīvikas would not at first find a spiritual home with the more reputable Vaiṣṇavite sects, but rather with a sect on the fringes of orthodoxy, such as the Pāñcarātras, and there are features of Pāñcarātra teaching which are very reminiscent of that of the Ājīvikas. The doctrine of avatāras or divine incarnations is one such feature; others, though less obvious, are equally significant. For instance the Pāñcarātra, like the Jaina and the Ājīvika, uses the term jīva for the soul,⁹ in preference to ātma. As with the Ājīvikas, the soul, according to Pāñcarātra theory, is in some sense atomic,¹ and liberated souls are of two classes, *nityas* and *muktas*, the former of which can incarnate themselves at will, just as Viṣṇu himself.² We recall the *maṇḍalas* and *sambodhakas* of *Civañāṇa-cittiyār*.³

c25.s3.14

⁹ Schrader, Introduction to Pāñcarātra, p. 56.

c25.s3.15

¹ Ibid., p. 57.

c25.s3.16

² Ibid., pp. 56-8.

c25.s3.17

³ V. supra, p. 260.

c25.s3.18

Like Ājīvikism the Pāñcaratra system has a doctrine of *niyati*, although in the latter it is not so important as in the theory of Makkhali Gosāla. "In the foetus like condition of the *manus* in the energy (*śakti*) of God there springs up from time-energy (*kāla-śakti*) the subtle destiny (*niyati*) which represents the universal ordering element (*sarva-niyāmakaḥ*)."⁴ Niyati is "not only what the Vaiśeṣikas call Diś, to wit the regulator of positions in space . . . but . . . it also regulates, as karmic necessity, the intellectual capacity, inclinations, and practical ability of every being."⁵ *Kāla*, "the mysterious power existing in time which urges everything on . . . is looked upon as originating from *niyati*."⁶

c25.s3.19

⁴ Das Gupta, *History of Indian Philosophy*, vol. iii, p. 45.

c25.s3.20

⁵ Schrader, *Introduction to Pāñcarātra*, p. 64.

c25.s3.21

⁶ Ibid., loc. cit. South Indian Śaivism also gives *kāla* and *niyati* minor positions in its metaphysical scheme, as the soul is controlled by *karma*. Schomerus, *Śivaistische Frömmigkeit des tamilischen Raumes*, p. 318.

c25.s3.22

These similarities are by no means conclusive, but they suggest mutual influence. The doctrine of *Niyati*, as propounded by Makkhali Gosāla, is to be found recorded in texts much earlier than the Pāñcarātra *Saṃhitās*, the earliest quotation from which is as late as the tenth century A.D.,⁷ although they are thought to have been written some centuries earlier.⁸ It is therefore possible that the Pāñcarātras borrowed the doctrine of *Niyati* from the Ājīvikas, giving it a theistic basis by converting it into a secondary principle emerging from their god.

c25.s3.23

⁷ Ibid., p. 18.

c25.s3.24

⁸ Ibid., p. 19.

c25.s3.25

Similarities may also be found between Ājīvikism and other Vaiṣṇavite schools, especially those of Southern India, where the Ājīvika sect survived longest. Thus the Ālvār Vaiṣṇavite hymn-writers believed "that the grace of God was spontaneous and did not depend on any effort on the part of the devotee."⁹ We recall the words of Makkhali: "There is no question of bringing unripe *karma* to fruition . . . by virtuous conduct, by vows, by penance, or by chastity."¹⁰ Contact with the Ājīvikas may have developed this theistic *akriyāvāda*, or doctrine of salvation by grace.

c25.s3.26

⁹ Das Gupta, *History of Indian Philosophy*, vol. iii, p. 85.

c25.s3.27

¹⁰ V. supra, p. 14.

c25.s3.28

It is also possible that Ājīvikism influenced the doctrines of Madhva and the Dvaita school of Vaiṣṇavism. Madhva has been said to owe much to early Dravidian Christianity,¹ and the parallels between Christianity and some of Madhva’s doctrines are certainly close. But we do not believe that the Syrian Christians of Malabar have ever maintained a rigid Calvinism which classed all souls in three groups, those destined for salvation, perpetual transmigration, and damnation respectively.² For this doctrine we can find no more likely prototype than the rigid determinism of Makkhali, especially when combined with the later Ājīvika doctrine of the *maṇḍala* and *sambodhaka* forms of salvation.³ Madhva seems to have taken Ājīvika determinism and recast it in the theistic mould. In fact it might be suggested that the whole school of salvation “on the analogy of the cat” (*pūṇai-campantam*), which arose in the Dravidian country with the growth of *bhakti*, owed much in inspiration to the originally atheistic Ājīvika doctrine of *Niyati*.

c25.s3.29

¹ Grierson, *ERE*. viii, p. 234.

c25.s3.30

² Ibid., loc. cit.

c25.s3.31

³ V. supra, p. 260.

c25.s3.32

The influence of the Ājīvikas on the doctrines of the Pāñcarātras, Ālvārs, and followers of Madhva cannot be proved, but it may be inferred as a valid probability. A further line of influence may also be suggested.

c25.s3.33

As we have shown, the *Mahābhārata* proves that fatalist views, implying a far more complete determinism than the orthodox doctrine of *karma*, were widespread in Northern India at a very early period.⁴ Further evidence, from the Epic onwards, shows that the small Ājīvika community of later days was not alone in its fatalism. Thus Manu instructs the Āryan not to rely on Destiny but to act for himself.⁵ Bhartṛhari’s *Nītiśataka* contains ten verses in honour of Fate.⁶ Like Manu, the *Hitōpadeśa* bears witness to and deplores the existence of fatalist views.⁷ Even in later times we can still hear echoes of Makkhali Gosāla’s despairing cry, *N’ atthi purisa-kāra*. The Ājīvikas survived until the late medieval period in the Tamil country, and certain later Tamil proverbs seem to show traces of their teaching. We quote a few examples from Jensen's collection :—

c25.s3.34

⁴ V. supra, p. 218.

c25.s3.35

⁵ vii, 205.

c25.s3.36

⁶ *Nītiśataka*, vv. 81–90.

c25.s3.37

⁷ *Hitōpadeśa*, i, 29. V. supra, p. 222, n. 2.

c25.s3.38

“ That which does not exist will not come into existence, and that which exists will not be annihilated.”¹ This is the Ājīvika doctrine of *avicalita-nityatvam*.

c25.s3.39

¹ *Illatu varātu, uḷḷatu pokātu*. Jensen, *Classified Collection of Tamil Proverbs*, p. 5, no. 48.

c25.s3.40

“ Even if a man do penance on the point of a needle he will not get more than was destined for him.”²

c25.s3.41

² *Ūci muṇaiyil tavam ceytālum uḷḷatu tāṉ kiṭaikkum*. Ibid., p. 5, no. 49.

c25.s3.42

“ One may bathe so as to wash off oil, but who can rub so as to free himself from fate.”³

c25.s3.43

³ *Eṉṉey pōka muḷukiṉālum eḷuttu-p pōka-t tēy-p pāruṇṭā*. Jensen, op. cit., p. 5, no. 51.

c25.s3.44

“ Though a man exert himself over and over again he shall only get what comes on the appointed day.”⁴ This reminds us once more of Gosāla’s original teaching : “ There is no strength, no courage, no human endurance.”

c25.s3.45

⁴ *Aṭuttu muyaṉṟulum ākum nāḷ tāṉ ākum*. Ibid., p. 5, no. 65.

c25.s3.46

As the propagator of the doctrine of the futility of human effort and of the all-embracing power of Destiny, Ājīvikism cannot have failed to “ enrich the systems which supplanted and supplemented it ”. It would indeed be an error of over-caution to assert that this system, in the two thousand years of its existence, had no influence on the development of wide-spread and popular theories in agreement with its fundamental doctrine of determinism.

The Place of the Ājīvikas in Indian History

c25.s4.1

The position of the Ājīvikas in “ the general scheme of Indian history as a whole ” can best be understood by again looking at their origins. They emerged at a time when the whole civilized world was in intellectual ferment, which was expressed in India in the heretical non-brāhmaṇic sects, and the gnosis of the Upaniṣads. The reaction was in part a revival and restatement of pre-Āryan and pre-polytheist animism—an animism adapted to the high degree of material civilization already reached by its adoption of ethical standards and of speculative world-views, which were later worked up into metaphysical systems of great complexity and subtlety. Buddhism moved furthest away from this primitive animist background, but its humble ancestry may perhaps be traced in the doctrine of transmigration which it shared with all sects, and which appears by this time to have become a fundamental axiom of all Indian creeds. With the other creeds and sects the animist origins are clearer. The impersonal *brahman* of the Upaniṣads is probably derived not from the anthropomorphic polytheism of the Āryans, but from the belief in impersonal magical power, or *mana*, common to most primitive peoples. The doctrines of the Jainas and the Ājīvikas show further and stronger traces of the animist heritage. The conception of *dharma*, *adharma*, *sukha*, and *duḥkha* as in some sense material¹ is surely a survival of the primitive mentality, which is scarcely capable of conceiving an abstract entity.

c25.s4.2

¹ V. supra, pp. 263, 267.

c25.s4.3

The Ājīvikas show an even closer relationship to animism in their doctrine of the atomic nature of the soul, a theory but little removed from the soul-stuff theories of the savage, who viewed even the life of man as a solid substance. It is to the credit of the Ājīvikas that on this primitive basis they developed what was probably the earliest atomic theory of India; the concept of invisible and unchanging atoms is surely a manifestation of a rationally controlled imagination of a high order, and for this we must give credit to Pakudha Kaccāyana, the doctrines of whom, if not the name, were preserved by the Ājīvika sect.

c25.s4.4

Similarly the Ājīvikas deserve credit for their doctrine of *Niyati*. This represents a very real recognition of orderliness in a universe on the human level apparently wholly unpredictable and disorderly. The same, it is true, may be said of the other new sects of the period, all of which, reviving in one way or another the Vedic concept of *ṛta*, but incorporating with it an atheistic or impersonal first principle, posited a framework of *karmic* cause and effect, within which the soul moved. It was for the Ājīvikas to drive this doctrine to its extreme conclusion, and replace the chain of causation, new links of which might be forged by the free will of the individual, by the single determining principle, *Niyati*, which denied free will altogether. The pragmatic value of this doctrine was slight, or even negative, but at least Makkhali Gosāla may claim the doubtful honour of anticipating by over two thousand years the now rather unfashionable world view of the nineteenth century physicist.

c25.s4.5

It is nowadays not unheard of for the historian to attempt to find economic and material counterparts to philosophic and religious developments, and to give logical priority to the former. Thus the development of philosophy in Ancient Greece has been ascribed to the replacement of the tribal warlords of the Homeric age by a community of city states; with the disappearance of the chieftains and tribal kings the gods, who were their heavenly counterparts, appeared obsolete to the best minds of the times, and new speculative systems were devised to replace them. Similarly the rise of Protestantism in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been attributed to the growth of a powerful commercial middle class, antagonistic to the ruling aristocracies, and demanding a new order in religion as in politics.

c25.s4.6

While we cannot share the view that this theory of the development of philosophy and religion contains the whole truth, it may be conceded that the philosopher and the religious reformer may often be inspired, consciously or unconsciously, in their search for deeper insight by social, economic, and political change. It is possible to suggest a social and economic counterpart to the great wave of spiritual unrest which swept the Ganges valley in the sixth century B.C.

c25.s4.7

The thirty-three great gods of the Āryans, and the lesser earth-spirits of the aboriginals, were too motley a company to correspond to the orderly civilization which had already emerged, while the martial and capricious character of the former, and the chthonic nature of the latter group of divinities, were inadequate to meet the spiritual needs of the rising class of merchants, to the existence of which both Buddhist and Jaina texts testify. We will concede to the historical materialist that Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikism were to this extent a reflection of the changes in the social and economic pattern of the times.

c25.s4.8

Among the three new cults Ājīvikism stands out for its thoroughgoing recognition of order in the universe. The cosmos of Makkhali Gosāla is immense in space and time, and ordered in every detail. The traditional cosmology, on the other hand, is an untidy confusion, wherein, for instance, the immediate cause of the monsoon is the victory of Indra over the cloud-dragon, and its ultimate cause the satisfactory performance of the sacrifices whereby Indra and the other gods are maintained. The earlier conception is only appropriate to a half-civilized tribal society. The efforts of the poets of the philosophical hymns in the *Rg* and *Atharva Vedas*, and of the brāhmaṇic thinkers who attempted to systematize the theory of the sacrificial cult, probably took place at the same time as comparable developments in the sphere of political and economic organization. The great efflorescence of religious thought coincided with the growth of large well-organized kingdoms in Magadha, Kosala, Kosambi, and Avanti.

c25.s4.9

Of the various new doctrines propounded in the sixth century B.C., that of Ājīvikism, with its rigidly controlled cosmos, seems the most appropriate to a closely knit autocracy, and it is significant that it appears to have reached its period of greatest influence in the time of the Mauryas, when Indian government attained a higher degree of centralization over a larger area than at any other period before the nineteenth century. With the decline of centralized control, and the growth of smaller loosely knit kingdoms, to which lesser states were linked in quasi-feudal relationship, the sect waned in power, and ultimately vanished. The more orthodox concept of *karma*, which allows some scope for human initiative, seems more appropriate to such conditions than does the rigid determinism of *Niyati*. After the Maurya period central governments were by no means all-powerful; often indeed they were unable to maintain control in their outlying provinces; and the political unity of Bhāratavarṣa had vanished. The rapid decline of popular support for Ājīvikism, which seems to have taken place after the Maurya period, may perhaps be attributed to the unconscious conviction that Ājīvika cosmology did not fit the facts as they appeared on earth. It will be remembered that the sect survived longest in districts ruled by the Cola kingdom, where the political machine seems to have functioned more smoothly and efficiently than in most other parts of India.

c25.s4.10

A further religious development, which affected the Ājīvikas, also shows a correspondence to contemporary political changes. While no monarch after Aśoka exerted so much power as he, the status of kingship rose from Mauryan times onwards. Aśoka, although "dear to the Gods", was a simple *rājā*. The Guptas, on the other hand, were emperors (*mahārājādhirāja*). In the succeeding epoch almost every independent king, however small his kingdom, adopted this or some such magniloquent title. The theory of the king’s divinity gained ground from Kushān times onwards. In the smaller kingdoms which succeeded the Mauryas, especially as the standards of bureaucratic administration declined, kings claimed a more exalted status and at the same time, owing to the smaller size of their kingdoms, their presence must have been felt more directly by their subjects. The impersonal principles of the heretical sects may have been appropriate to the less personal bureaucratic machine of the Mauryas, but they did not resemble the actual situation of later times, when power was usually vested in a single very exalted individual. Theism would be better suited to such a state of affairs, and theism did in fact begin to manifest itself as a significant element in the Indian religious situation at about the time of the break-up of the Maurya empire. Strengthened perhaps by survivals from popular chthonic cults, or even by ideas from the West, it developed throughout the Hindu period of India’s history, and, as we have seen, Ājīvikism itself was not unaffected by it.¹ Indian theism reached its final form when much of the land was in the control of alien monarchs, and when simple people must have been craving for the milder paternal despotism of such legendary rulers as Rāma and Vikramāditya. Thus the growth of devotional monotheism fits into the perspective of India’s political vicissitudes.

c25.s4.11

¹ V. supra, pp. 276–77.

c25.s4.12

We would not by this analysis maintain that the rise and decline of religious systems and sects are mere reflections of social conditions. They are, however, manifestations of human need. If they can no longer fully satisfy the needs of their adherents they will stagnate and die. But a religion is long in dying. It may obtain a new lease of life by a restatement of old verities in a more modern form, or by the introduction of new elements of belief. It may retain an attenuated and local existence long after it has outlived its period of general usefulness. And even when it is dead, some of its features may survive in a disguised form, incorporated into other systems, or maintained as folklore or superstition. Thus for a while Ājīvikism met the needs of a large body of adherents, but soon began to lose its vitality; it survived long in one region of India, incorporating new features into its doctrine; and it does not seem to have vanished without leaving some faint traces upon later Indian religion.

c25.s4.13

So, tentatively, we answer Dr. Barua’s questions, and conclude our study of the Ājīvikas. Their long, but by no means glorious existence, has left but few traces, and we have only been able to reconstruct their history and doctrines in faint outline by extracting every possible hint from the material available to us. Even now it has been necessary to leave many questions unanswered, and large gaps in the structure of the history of the Ājīvikas are unfilled. But new information may yet come to light which may enable the structure to be strengthened. No work of history can have more than a provisional conclusion—the remainder of the History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas is yet to be written.

Linked texts (9)