Reflections on Ājīvikism
I recently learned about the Ājīvikas, one of the nāstika or “heterodox” schools of Indian philosophy.
Believed to be founded in the 5th century BCE by Makkhali Gosāla, it was a Śramaṇa movement and a major rival of Vedic religion, early Buddhism, and Jainism. Ājīvikas were organized renunciates who formed discrete communities. The precise identity of the Ājīvikas is not well known, and it is even unclear if they were a divergent sect of the Buddhists or the Jains.
Original scriptures of the Ājīvika school of philosophy may once have existed, but these are currently unavailable and probably lost. Their theories are extracted from mentions of Ājīvikas in the secondary sources of ancient Indian literature. Scholars question whether Ājīvika philosophy has been fairly and completely summarized in these secondary sources, as they were written by groups (such as the Buddhists and Jains) competing with and adversarial to the philosophy and religious practices of the Ājīvikas. It is therefore likely that much of the information available about the Ājīvikas is inaccurate to some degree, and characterizations of them should be regarded carefully and critically.
Ājīvika philosophy, otherwise referred to as Ājīvikism in Western scholarship, reached the height of its popularity during the rule of the Mauryan emperor Bindusara, around the 4th century BCE. This school of thought thereafter declined, but survived for nearly 2,000 years through the 13th and 14th centuries CE in the Southern Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
What were the central tenets of Ājīvika philosophy?
I. Determinism
The problems of time and change was one of the main interests of the Ājīvikas. Their views on this subject may have been influenced by Vedic sources, such as the hymn to Kala (Time) in Atharvaveda. Both Jaina and Buddhist texts state that Ājīvikas believed in absolute determinism, absence of free will, and called this niyati. Everything in human life and universe, according to Ājīvikas, was predetermined, operating out of cosmic principles, and true choice did not exist. The Buddhist and Jaina sources describe them as strict fatalists, who did not believe in karma. The Ājīvika philosophy held that all things are preordained, and therefore religious or ethical practice has no effect on one's future, and people do things because cosmic principles make them do so, and all that will happen or will exist in future is already predetermined to be that way. No human effort could change this niyati and the karma ethical theory was a fallacy. James Lochtefeld summarizes this aspect of Ājīvika belief as, “life and the universe is like a ball of pre-wrapped up string, which unrolls until it was done and then goes no further”.
Riepe states that the Ājīvika belief in predeterminism does not mean that they were pessimistic. Rather, just like Calvinists belief in predeterminism in Europe, the Ājīvika were optimists. The Ājīvika simply did not believe in the moral force of action, or in merits or demerits, or in after-life to be affected because of what one does or does not do. Actions had immediate effects in one's current life but without any moral traces, and both the action and the effect was predetermined, according to the Ājīvikas.
II. Metaphysics
Ājīvika was an atheistic philosophy. Its adherents did not presume any deity as the creator of the universe, or as prime mover, or that some unseen mystical end was the final resting place of the cosmos.
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Ājīvikaz developed a theory of elements and atoms similar to the Vaisheshika school of Vedics. Everything was composed of minuscule atoms, according to Ājīvikas, and qualities of things are derived from aggregates of atoms, but the aggregation and nature of these atoms was predetermined by cosmic forces.
The Tamil text of Ājīvikas asserts that this “coming together of atoms can take diversity of forms, such as the dense form of a diamond, or a loose form of a hollow bamboo”. Everything one perceives, states the atomism theory of Ājīvikas, was mere juxtapositions of atoms of various types, and the combinations occur always in fixed ratios governed by certain cosmic rules, forming skandha (molecules, building blocks). Atoms, asserted the Ājīvika, cannot be seen by themselves in their pure state, but only when they aggregate and form bhutas (objects). They further argued that properties and tendencies are characteristics of the objects. The Ājīvikas then proceeded to justify their belief in determinism and “no free will” by stating that everything experienced – sukha (joy), dukkha (sorrow) and jiva (life) – is mere function of atoms operating under cosmic rules.
As an aside, an early Muslim sect known as the Mu’tazilites held a rather strange set of metaphysical beliefs: atomist like the Ājīvikas, but decidedly not atheist or determinist.
Since God was ultimately responsible for manipulating the particles, his actions were not bound by the material laws of the universe. This radically sovereign God entailed an occasionalist theology: God could intervene directly in the world to produce contingent events at will. This radical freedom was possible precisely because the world was composed solely of inert matter rather than an immaterial spirit with an independent vital force of its own.
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For al Ghazali, God has the ability to make anything happen whenever He chooses. In general, the world functions in a predictable manner, but a miraculous event can occur at any moment. All it takes for a miracle to occur is for God to not follow His ‘custom.’ The quantum world is very similar. Lead balls fall when released because the probability of their behaving in that way is very high. It is, however, very possible that the lead ball may ‘miraculously’ rise rather than fall when released. Although the probability of such an event is very small, such an event is, nonetheless, still possible.
III. Ethics
Another doctrine of Ājīvika philosophy, according to Buddhist texts, was their antinomian ethics, that is there exist “no objective moral laws”. Buddhaghosa summarizes this view as, “There is neither cause nor basis for the sins of living beings and they become sinful without cause or basis. There is neither cause nor basis for the purity of living beings and they become pure without cause or basis. All beings, all that have breath, all that are born, all that have life, are without power, or strength, or virtue, but are the result of destiny, chance and nature, and they experience joy and sorrow in six classes”.
Despite this ascribed premise of antinomian ethics, both Jain and Buddhist records note that Ājīvikas lived a simple ascetic life, without clothes and any material possessions. Tamil literature on Ājīvikas suggests that they practiced Ahimsa (non-violence) and a vegetarian lifestyle.
1) How many cultural forms—languages, philosophies, entire realms of feeling and experience—have been lost forever, swept away by the tide of history? How incomplete and distorted is our understanding of ancient thought? How much would the course of history have been altered if certain lost books had survived?
2) What if Ājīvikism had flourished and become the dominant religious paradigm in the East instead of Hinduism and Buddhism? How different would the modern world be if its foundation were Indian Ājīvikism instead of Western European Christianity? How would our politics, philosophy, and science have developed differently?
Is it possible that the scientific revolution would have come much sooner given that the atomism of the Ājīvikas was basically correct (“everything was composed of minuscule atoms and qualities of things are derived from aggregates of atoms, but the aggregation and nature of these atoms was predetermined by cosmic forces”). Might this have given an Ājīvikian science a head start on discovering the fundamental forces and building blocks of nature?
3) To what degree was the death of Ājīvikism inevitable given the nature of its philosophy? In contrast to Ājīvikism, all of the dominant world religions propose some kind of objective moral order (karma, sin, heaven/hell, nirvana) and believe that individuals play a role in this order through their actions and virtues and vices. Do societies with these more morally-grounded cultural operating systems have an advantage (e.g. more effective military organization or norm enforcement) over societies that don’t such that they inevitably outcompete them? As far as I can tell there are no examples of a long-enduring culture/society founded on a fatalist philosophy and antinomian ethic, and indeed it’s difficult to imagine what that would even look like. At least from what I’ve read and shared here, it’s hard to tell exactly how this philosophy was used to justify the “simple ascetic life, without clothes and any material possessions”, but regardless it’s hard to imagine how this could form the basis of a materially successful society. (It should also be recalled that most of what we know is relayed through adversarial sources and may be distorted or exaggerated. It’s very possible that the actual philosophy was considerably less radical than it seems to us now.)
On the other hand, the connection between a culture’s professed beliefs and its behaviors can be very loose indeed, and history shows us that even the most peace-loving creeds can be used to justify atrocities. It doesn’t seem entirely inconceivable that an Ājīvika society could have, over the course of centuries or millennia, evolved into a world-conquering empire, but perhaps such a outcome was so unlikely to render it virtually impossible.
4) Kevin Kelly muses along similar lines in regards to the possibility of alien or AI religions in his short blog post, “The Religions of Aliens”:
We know so little about what is possible are for alien beings that we can’t even begin to theorize. The culture of intelligent life might be so drastically different that we can’t begin to speculate with any confidence. A better exercise might be a counterfactual; what kinds of religions might have arisen among our own species on this planet if we re-ran the tape of history? What if civilization began in the period before the last ice age in a different river valley system? What could the course of religions look like? That’s a start in imagining alien religions, by imagining aliens not that different from us, but with a different set of initial conditions.
5) Very little is known about the supposed founder of Ājīvikism:
Makkhali Gosala (c. 484 BCE) is generally considered as the founder of the Ājīvika movement. Gosala is described in ancient texts as a contemporary of Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism, and of Gautama Buddha. Some sources state that Gosala was only a leader of a large Ājīvika congregation of ascetics, but not the founder of the movement himself. The Swedish Indologist Jarl Charpentier and others suggest the Ājīvika tradition existed in India well before the birth of Makkhali Gosala, citing a variety of ancient Indian texts.
Gosala was believed to be born in Tiruppatur of Tiruchirappalli district in Tamil Nadu and was the son of Mankha, a professional mendicant. His mother was Bhaddā. His name Gosala “cow shed” refers to his humble birthplace.
“While Bhaddā was pregnant, she and her husband Mankhali, the mankha, came to the village...of Saravaṇa, where dwelt a wealthy householder Gobahula. Mankhali left his wife and his luggage...in Gobahula’s cow shed (gosālā)...Since he could find no shelter elsewhere the couple continued to live in a corner of the cow shed, and it was there that Bhaddā gave birth to her child.”
Wait so you’re telling me that both Jesus and Gosala were born in animal housing structures?!? Surely, this is cannot be a mere coincidence. I call for immediate full-scale investigation (clinical trials, observational studies, longitudinal studies, meta-analyses, etc. etc.) on the relationship between animal housing structure birthing and spiritual leadership.
The “what might have been” question prompted me to say, “well that’s what science fiction does; start with a counterfactual and see where it goes.” And then (still talking out loud to my inner self) and so fantasy is starting with different premises but coming to the same old conclusion. And then I said, well, it can’t be that cut and dried. Especially now — since nearly all new science fiction is about oppression and identity politics: same old, same old. Anyway, nice find on a “counterfactual” that actually happened. You could use it as the basis for a SF novel.
Does that mean that spiritual leaders have to be taken with a load of shit?