History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c9.s1.2

c9.s1.2

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.