History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c25.s4.7

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.