Ājīvika

Ājīvaka [alt. Ājīvakā; Ājīvika] (T. 'tsho ba can; C. Xieming waidao 邪命外道). One of the major early Indian sramana sects during the fifth century BCE. Their leader, Makkhali Gosāla (S. Maskarin Gośālīputra) (d. c. 488 BCE), was a contemporary of the Buddha.

Because no Ājīvaka works survive, information about the schools doctrines is derived from Buddhist and Jaina sources. As presented in Buddhist literature, "the Ājīvakas adhered to a doctrine of strict determinism or fatalism."

"The Buddha is said to have regarded Makkhali Gosāla’s views as the most dangerous of heresies, which was capable of leading even the divinities (deva) to loss, discomfort, and suffering.

A. K. Warder states:

The name Ājīvaka originated from the ājīva, the way of life, of the wandering Sramanas. It was taken by a large school or community founded by a group of prominent teachers in Kośala (west of Vṛji) in 489 B.C. The leader of this school was Gosāla (died 488 B.C.), who had propounded its central doctrine, that of fatalism, and was afterwards revered as a silent sage. The Ājīvakas believed in transmigration on a grand scale, each individual soul passing automatically into final peace after having experienced every possible kind of life in turn (lastly that of an Ājīvaka wanderer). This series of incarnations of the soul was supposed to take nearly thirty million million million, multiplied by the number of grains of sand in the bed of the river Ganges, years. The school developed an elaborate system of divination and prognostication by the interpretation of dreams and other omens. Ājīvakas were sometimes employed by kings to make predictions, but the original function of this knowledge of the future and its inescapable experiences was presumably to induce a spirit of resignation and peace of mind. The possibility of making a correct prediction was the best evidence for all events being determined in advance by Destiny (Niyati).

In harmony with this determinism was the doctrine of 'inaction' (akriyā) originally propounded by another Ājīvaka teacher, Purana (died c. 503 B.c.). All the supposed actions of men, 'good' or 'bad', are no actions at all, produce no effect or influence on the future (hence the school rejects moral causation). From another teacher, Kakuda (in Pali Pakudha), the Ājīvakas took their doctrine of the constituent elements of the universe, which were uncreated, uncuttable, sterile, immovable and rigid. These undergo no alteration or transformation and do not interact. Any supposed action passes ineffectively between their atoms. There are seven of these elements (or 'substances', kāya): earth, water, heat, air, happiness, unhappiness and soul (or 'life', jīva).

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• Warder, A.K. (2000), Indian Buddhism (Third ed.), Dheli: Motilal Banarsidass 

Further reading

• Ājīvika, Wikipedia