History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c9.s1: The Historical Background to the Rise of Ājīvikism
History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c9.s1
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The Historical Background to the Rise of Ājīvikism
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The range of philosophical speculation in Ancient India went beyond the bounds laid down by Hinduism in its various branches, and even beyond those fixed by the great heterodox sects of Buddhism and Jainism. The presence of fully materialist groups, Cārvākas or Lokāyatas, which denied the existence of the soul, the gods, and the future life, is very well known. Besides these, however, were other sects which, while not denying human immortality or the existence of the gods, would not accept any of the more popular interpretations of these doctrines, but preferred explanations which were not consistent with Hinduism, Buddhism, or Jainism. That teachers of such heretical doctrines were the contemporaries of the Buddha is proved by the Sāmañña-phala Sutta, the starting point of our researches. It is clear that several such teachers gathered groups of followers together and founded saṅghas, perhaps in some cases loosely linked one with another; and from some of these developed Ājīvikism, the subject of our present study, which survived the death of its founder for nearly two thousand years, and was, at least locally, a significant factor in ancient Indian religious life.
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Ājīvikism was, in fact, a third heretical sect, beside those of Buddhism and Jainism, with both of which its relations seem to have been often far from cordial. The cardinal point of the doctrines of its founder, Makkhali Gosāla, was a belief in the all-embracing rule of the principle of order, Niyati, which ultimately controlled every action and all phenomena, and left no room for human volition, which was completely ineffectual. Thus Ājīvikism was founded on an unpromising basis of strict determinism, above which was developed a superstructure of complicated and fanciful cosmology, incorporating an atomic theory which was perhaps the earliest in India, if not in the world. The ethics of the sect were often said by its opponents to be antinomian, but it is certain that, whatever their ethics, the Ājīvikas practised asceticism of a severe type which often terminated, like that of the Jainas, in death by starvation.
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Ājīvika determinism emerged, together with the atomism with which it was later associated, in conditions of rising civilization in the Ganges valley, when political power was rapidly being consolidated. By the sixth century B.C. at least part of India had enjoyed some two thousand years of urban culture. The industrious and uninspiring civilization of the Indus cities, with its chthonic religion, had been replaced by the more barbaric culture of the Āryans, with a disorderly pantheon of celestial deities. The Āryans, no doubt heirs to the residuum of the Indus civilization, gradually expanded southwards and eastwards from the Panjāb. By the tenth century B.C., when they had occupied Kurukṣetra and the Doāb, the first steps in philosophical speculation had been taken, and sceptics were already asking whether it was possible to know the ultimate basis of the universe.¹ But at this period of small tribal kingdoms most of the mental energy of the best minds seems to have been devoted to a sterile effort at providing a satisfying symbolic interpretation of the elaborate and costly sacrificial rituals of the time.
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¹ Rg Veda x, 129, 7.
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Penetration down the Ganges probably proceeded slowly; but the records of the period have left little direct indication of the process of Āryan expansion, or of the culture of the people whom the Āryans met. It is not likely that that culture was at the lowest stages of barbarism. It must have been able to exert a counter-influence on the Āryan polytheism which was imposed upon it, for it is difficult otherwise to account for the emergence of the doctrine of transmigration and of mystical monism in the period of the Upaniṣads, which probably dates from the seventh century B.C.² By this time we find that Āryan influence had reached as far as Magadha and Videha, where reigned the great king Janaka, an enthusiastic patron of the hermits and wandering sophists who propagated the new ideas.³ We cannot be certain that the earliest teachers of the Upaniṣadic doctrines were Āryan by blood. The theory of transmigration must have been developed from older animist theories very widespread among primitive peoples, and its first propagators may have been non-Āryans, stimulated by the invaders to develop their cruder ideas of metempsychosis by giving them an ethical basis in the form of karma.
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² Macdonnell, History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 226.
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³ GHI. i, pp. 122, 127.
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In the time of the Buddha, which was also the time of Makkhali Gosāla, we find the territory of what is now Utta Pradesh and South Bihār occupied by two great kingdoms, Kosala and Magadha. Both were expanding, and had recently absorbed lesser states on their borders, Kāsī (the district of Benares) having fallen to Kosala,¹ and Aṅga (E. Bihār and N.-W. Bengal) to Magadha.² To the north of the two great kingdoms were small tribal oligarchies, precariously maintaining their existence against the greater states. The most famous of them, that of the Śākyas, was already tributary to Pasenadi or Prasenajit of Kosala, and was soon to be devastated by his son Viḍūḍabha³; while the largest of the so-called republics, the confederacy of the Vajjis, which seems to have superseded the kingdom of Janaka in Videha, was also soon to be conquered by Viḍūḍabha’s contemporary, Ajātasattu, the son of king Bimbisāra of Magadha.⁴
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¹ PHAI., pp. 130–1.
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² Ibid., p. 167.
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³ Ibid., pp. 162–3.
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⁴ Ibid., pp. 171–4. V. infra, pp. 69 ff.
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The people of the time and region seem to have called themselves Āryans; Buddha knew the word well, and used it in the sense of “good” or “noble”. But the non-Āryan element, both in culture and race, must still have been strong. It has even been suggested that the whole development of religion and philosophy in this period, from Upaniṣadic gnosis to complete materialism, was but a reflection of the non-Āryan reaction to the Āryan sacrificial system and to the rigid Āryan social order of the four varṇas.⁵
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⁵ CHI. i, p. 144, and references in n. 1 of that page.
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By this time a city civilization had developed in the Ganges valley, beside the immemorial culture of the villages; numerous towns, which must have existed at the time of the Buddha, are mentioned in the earliest Buddhist scriptures. A high standard of luxury was enjoyed by kings, nobles, and merchants, and many of the latter had amassed very large fortunes. Punch-marked coins were probably in use, and writing was known, but not widely used.
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The three heterodox sects which arose in this cultural climate, Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikism, had much in common. All three alike rejected the sacrificial polytheism of the Āryans and the monistic theories of the Upaniṣadic mystics. The personified natural forces of the former, and the world-soul of the latter were replaced by cosmic principles, and the supernatural powers were relegated to an inferior or even negligible position. In fact the three new religions represent a recognition of the rule of natural law in the universe, and the work of their founders may in this respect be compared with that of their approximate contemporaries, the natural philosophers of Ionia. Of the three systems that of the Ājīvikas, based on the principle of Niyati as the only determining factor in the uinverse, perhaps represents a more thorough recognition of the orderliness of nature than do the doctrines of either of its more successful rivals.
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The religious reformer rarely devises the central tenets of his new faith without any basis of older belief on which to build; rather he restates, modifies, or throws a fresh light upon earlier teaching, and this restatement has for his contemporaries the force and novelty of a new revelation. We may feel confident that fatalist teachings, out of which the doctrine of Niyati developed, had existed before the time of Makkhali Gosāla, as indeed is indicated by various references in both Buddhist and Jaina texts.¹ A belief in fate, the inevitability of important events, or of events with dire consequences, seems to arise at an early stage of religious development in many cultures. Parallel with it arises the belief in the efficiency of magic, spells, sacrifice, and prayer, to circumvent the effects of fate.² Certain peoples, notably the earlier Semites, almost consistently rejected determinism and fatalism. Thus for the Babylonians ". . . the fates . . . were not believed to have been fixed from the beginning, but were pictured as in hourly process of development under the personal supervision of the supreme deity".³ Similarly Hebrew monotheism, while based firmly on the almightiness of God, asserted, implicitly and explicitly, the power of the individual to affect his own destiny by pursuing courses of conduct pleasing to the Almighty. The early development of astrology in the Middle East does not seem to have led to the logical conclusion that the fortune of the individual, if predictable and correlated to the regular movements of the stars, must be rigidly determined.
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¹ V. infra, pp. 27 ff.
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² V. ERE. v, p. 772 s.v. Fate.
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³ ERE. v, p. 779.
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On the other hand the Indo-European peoples may have entertained a belief in an inevitable destiny at a very early period. Admittedly the hymns of the *Rg Veda* do not suggest a fatalistic attitude to life. One’s destiny is influenced by propitiating the gods, who are the arbiters of human fortune, and can be induced to show favour, or to relent in their anger. This seems to have been the general priestly theory of all the Indo-European peoples in the earlier stages of their development. But there is evidence of another line of thought. Though a wholly fatalist attitude may not be found in the religious tradition, as depicted for instance in the *Rg Veda*, such an attitude does appear in the martial tradition of the epics. Widespread in Indo-European epic literature is the hero who, well knowing that he and his comrades are fated to defeat and death, goes boldly into battle because it is “the thing to do”, the right and natural conduct of the warrior. As examples of this doomed warrior we may cite Karṇa in the *Mahābhārata*,¹ both Hector and Achilles in the *Iliad*,² Hagen in the *Nibelungenlied*,³ and Ferdiad in the Cuchullain Saga.⁴ No doubt other examples may be found. From its widespread occurrence it seems probable that this grim tradition of the doomed hero was known to the Indo-European peoples before their separation, and we may infer that it existed in India long before the final recension of the Mahābhārata. May it have had any influence on the development of Ājīvika fatalism? In eastern India at the time of Makkhali Gosāla were vrātyas, bands of nomadic Āryans who had fallen away from the priestly religion, and might be received back into the Āryan fold only after purification ceremonies.¹ Their chief centre was Magadha, a kingdom which Makkhali Gosāla visited in the course of his wanderings with Mahāvīra before his “enlightenment”.² At that time Magadhans were famous as bards,³ and sang the martial songs out of which the epic tradition grew at the courts of chieftains all over Āryāvarta. Makkhali Gosāla, before his association with Mahāvīra, was, according to the Jaina story, a maṅkha; this word is equated by Hemacandra with māgadha, a bard.⁴ Thus a very slender chain of relations connects the founder of Ājīvikism with the Āryan fatalist tradition, and his determinism may in part have been inspired by ideas derived from the renegade Āryan singers of martial songs.
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¹ *Mbh.* Udyoga, 141-3.
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² *Iliad* vi, 447-9, 486-9 (Hector); xix, 420-3 (Achilles).
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³ *Nibelungenlied*, ed K. Bartsch, xxvi, 1587-9.
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⁴ *Táin Bó Cúalnge*, ed. E. Windisch, pp. 456-7, v. 8. Although before and during his protracted duel with Cuchullain Ferdiad blusters and threatens, these are the conventional boasts of the warrior, and he recognizes his fate at the last (pp. 526-9). The whole of the *Táin*, from the words of Fedelm the prophetess (pp. 26-39), to the death of the wonderful bull, which had been the bone of contention between the opposing parties, is permeated with epic fatalism. Even in the last sentence of the story we read: “So war seine Geschichte und seine Schicksal” (*Deired*) (pp. 908-9).
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¹ CHI, i, 146. If we accept the theory of J. W. Hauer (Der Vratya, Stuttgart, 1927) that the vrātyas were a class of heterodox nomadic holy-men, whose religious practices included sympathetic magic, exorcism, ritual dancing, and cursing their opponents, it may be suggested that they had some influence upon the Ājīvikas. The latter were also given to religious dancing and singing, and their leader had the reputation of a wonder worker whose ready imprecations were most effective in their operation. Hauer himself has compared the unstrung bow of the vrātya with the daṇḍa or staff of the orthodox ascetic of later times (op. cit., p. 132). The Ājīvikas also appear to have carried staves (v. infra, p. 99).
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² V. infra, pp. 39 ff.
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³ PHAI., p. 96.
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⁴ V. infra, pp. 33-36.
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But the Ājīvika doctrine of Niyati may also have had a non-Āryan ancestry. Admittedly rigid determinism is not natural to the thought of most Indian religions; according to the usual form of the karma theory a man’s present state is determined by his past conduct, whether in this life or a previous one, but he has a sufficient measure of free will to permit him to modify his future by choosing the right course of action. Yet the climate and geography of India are such as to encourage a fatalist attitude to life. The phenomena of nature are impressive in their grandeur and regularity. Natural catastrophes such as flood, drought, and famine occur from time to time on such a scale that no human effort, even at the present day, can prevent them, or do more than mitigate their effects. In the time of Makkhali Gosāla the dependence of man upon nature must have been felt by the Indian even more strongly than at present. The slogan of the Ājīvika sect, "Human effort is ineffectual,"¹ may have been a very widespread and popular phrase, in time of distress often on the lips of the ordinary people of the Ganges valley. It is the typical cry of the peasant everywhere, when his crops are ruined by storm or drought, or when his livestock dies of pestilence. Significant in this connection is the *Mahābhārata* story of Maṅki, who, it is said, became a fatalist after the accidental loss of two steers.²
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¹ *N'atthi purisakāre*. V. infra, p. 14.
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² V. infra, pp. 38-39.
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Here then we have two possible sources of the Ājīvika creed, which must have provided gloomy and despairing comfort both to the warrior fighting a losing battle and to the peasant impoverished by the failure of his crops or herds. Probably both elements, as well as the personal genius of Makkhali Gosāla and of others, contributed to the finished Ājīvika doctrine, which for two millennia filled a small place in the religious life of India, and attempted to provide, however inadequately, for the spiritual needs of a small fraction of her people.
Linked texts (3)
- Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
- Sāmaññaphalasutta — Pāli
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit