History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c4.4

c4.4

For a long period, extending from early classical times to the middle of the Medieval period, our knowledge of Ājīvika history is a blank, for no records of those years have survived. Then the curtain rises again, and we find abundant documents in inscriptions of the Tamil and Kanarese areas and in a few works of southern literature. These show that in the intervening centuries the Ājīvikas had undergone changes such as are usual in the development of Indian religious bodies: the little congregation had hardened into a caste-community of considerable size, and the figure of its founder had assumed features of divinity. The story that is here narrated is indeed a highly interesting and instructive chapter in the vast record of Indian thought.