History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c5.17

c5.17

While I may claim to have added something to the work of Hoernle, Barua, and the other authorities, the account presented in this work, based mainly on the passing references of the Ājīvikas' religious opponents, is inevitably fragmentary, and not always definite. To the lacunae in our knowledge must be added many uncertainties arising from contradictions in the sources themselves and from the imponderable but very real effect upon their authors of *odium theologicum*, which is usually clearly apparent, and which must often have led to exaggerations, and perhaps to deliberately false statements. This being the case I have frequently been compelled to state my conclusions in hypothetical or provisional terms. The reader is asked to forgive the many occasions on which such irritating words and phrases as "probably", "possibly", "perhaps", "it may be that", or "we may tentatively conclude", etc., occur in the text. Such provisional conclusions are inevitable in the study of a subject such as this, and most Indologists would agree that they are better than no conclusions at all, or than categorical assertions based on inadequate evidence. Although in this and in other respects my picture of the rise, development, and decline of the Ājīvika sect is still lamentably defective, I trust that my work will throw a little new light on an interesting and significant aspect of India's past, and will encourage further research.