History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c5.6

c5.6

The next work on the subject was that of the late Dr. B. M. Barua.⁵ Dr. Barua stated that his reconstruction of Ājīvika doctrine required "a tremendous effort of imagination".⁶ He was perhaps too imaginative, for many of his assertions appear to be unjustified by the facts which he produces to back them, and some of his material seems not to relate to the Ājīvikas at all. Nevertheless his paper throws much valuable new light on the sect. Two further works of Dr. Barua should be noted; these are the chapter on Maskarin Gośāla in his *Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy*,⁷ and a further consideration of the etymology of the term Ājīvika, published in 1927⁸; neither of these adds material of great importance to the author's main thesis. Also worthy of mention is an article by Dr. A. Banerji Sastri, which puts forward a new theory on the evacuation of the caves of the Barābar Hills by their Ājīvika occupants.¹