History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c25.s2: Dr. Barua's Three Questions
History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c25.s2
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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.