g, that is, free will, responsibility and the merit or demerit of
good or bad actions. They nevertheless believed in metempsychosis and
practised asceticism. Apparently they held that beings are born again
and again according to a natural law, but not according to their deeds:
and that though asceticism cannot accelerate the soul's journey, yet at
a certain stage it is a fore-ordained and indispensable preliminary to
emancipation. The doctrines attributed to all four are crude and
startling. Perhaps they are exaggerated by the Buddhist narrator, but
they also reflect the irreverent exuberance of young thought. Purana
Kassapa denies that there is any merit in virtue or harm in murder.
Another ascetic called Ajita of the garment of hair teaches that nothing
exists but the four elements, and that "fools and wise alike are
annihilated on the dissolution of the body and after death they are
not." Then why, one asks, was he an ascetic? Similarly Pakudha Kaccayana
states that "when a sharp sword cleaves a head in twain" the soul and
pain play a part similar to that played by the component elements of the
sword and head. The most important of these teachers was Makkhali
Gosala. His doctrine comprises a denial of causation and free will and
an assertion that fools and wise alike will make an end of pain after
wandering through eighty-four hundred thousand births. The followers of
this teacher were called AjIvikas: they were a distinct body in the time
of Asoka, and the name[233] occurs as late as the thirteenth century in
South Indian inscriptions. Several accounts[234] of the founder are
extant, but all were compiled by bitter opponents, for he was hated by
Jains and Buddhists alike. His doctrine was closely allied to Jainism,
especially the Digambara sect, but was probably more extravagant and
anti-social. He appears to have objected to confraternities[235], to
have enjoined a solitary life, absolute nudity and extreme forms of
self-mortification, such as eating filth. The Jains accused his
followers of immorality and perhaps they were ancient prototypes of the
lower class of religious mendicants who have brought discredit on
Hinduism.

3

None of the phases of religious life described above can be called
popular. The religion of the Brahmans was the thought and science of a
class. The various un-Brahmanic confraternities usually required their
members to be wandering ascetics. They had little to say to village
householders