History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c4.2

c4.2

Both in religious and in social life movements of extreme intensity are apt to engender opposite forces. This rule of human nature is strikingly exemplified by the development of religion in Ancient India. Here history began with the dominance of Vedism, a group of polytheistic cults autocratically engineered by the Brāhmaṇs, who vigorously claimed that the welfare and indeed the very existence of the world, including even the gods, depended upon the maintenance of their systems of sacrifice, which grew to immense size and complexity. Dissent from this crude creed first appeared in the Upaniṣads, in which a few liberal-minded Brāhmaṇs, perhaps supported by some of the military aristocracy, put forward speculations of an elementary monistic idealism, while leaving the edifice of Vedism intact for the use of the unenlightened. But a far greater peril to Brāhmaṇic ritualism arose about this time, and spread far and wide, affecting some few of the Brāhmaṇs themselves; for now the very foundations of Brāhmaṇic orthodoxy were uncompromisingly denied, and preachers of what they claimed to be new and true doctrine arose on many sides. This radical movement assumed many phases. In some circles, Brāhmaṇic and non-Brāhmaṇic, it appeared in the form of a coarse atheistic materialism associated with the name of Cārvāka. Elsewhere it took a less crude shape. Among the aristocratic clans of the North two noblemen came under its influence, and created great churches: they were Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and Mahāvīra Vardhamāna, whom the Jains revere as their twenty-fourth Tīrthaṅkara. But besides these and some other less successful leaders of gentle birth there was a multitude of men of humble origin noisily preaching their heresies in various wise; and among these the Ājīvikas played a part of some importance, if not of great glory.