194-399: Ajivika ( Sanskrit : आजीविक , IAST : Ājīvika ) is one of the nāstika or "heterodox" schools of Indian philosophy . Believed to have been 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
388-445: A beautiful face in a soiled mirror, Seeing that reflection I wish myself you, an individual soul, as if I could be finite! A finite soul, an infinite Goddess – these are false concepts, in the minds of those unacquainted with truth, No space, my loving devotee, exists between your self and my self, Know this and you are free. This is the secret wisdom. The concept of moksha , according to Daniel Ingalls , represented one of
582-513: A concept common in Buddhism, is accompanied by the realization that all experienced phenomena are not self ; while moksha , a concept common in many schools of Hinduism, is acceptance of Self (soul), realization of liberating knowledge, the consciousness of Oneness with Brahman, all existence and understanding the whole universe as the Self. Nirvana starts with the premise that there is no Self, moksha on
776-421: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." Moksha Traditional Moksha ( / ˈ m oʊ k ʃ ə / ; Sanskrit : मोक्ष , mokṣa ), also called vimoksha , vimukti , and mukti ,
970-665: A debate, disagreement, and then "coming to blows" between factions led by Mahavira and by Gosala. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from
1164-682: A doctrine [of Ajivikas] which genuinely advocated the lack of efficacy of individual effort could have formed the basis of a renunciatory path to spiritual liberation", and that "the suspicion must be that the Jains and Buddhists deliberately distorted Ajivika doctrine for their own polemical purposes". In contrast, other scholars suggest that at least the common elements found about Ājīvikas in Jain and Buddhist literature may be considered, because Jainism and Buddhism were two different, competing and conflicting philosophies in ancient India. The problems of time and change
1358-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
1552-409: A fully elaborate philosophy, produced by its scholars and logicians, but those texts are lost. Their literature evolved over the centuries, like other traditions of Indian philosophy, through the medieval era. The Pali and Prakrit texts of Buddhism and Jainism suggest that Ajivika theories were codified, some of which were quoted in commentaries produced by Buddhist and Jaina scholars. The main texts of
1746-581: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
1940-643: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
2134-470: A mere function of atoms operating under cosmic rules. Riepe states that the details of the Ajivikas theory of atomism provided the foundations of later modified atomism theories found in Jain, Buddhist, and Vedic traditions. Another doctrine of Ajivikas philosophy, according to Buddhist texts, was their antinomian ethics, that is there exist "no objective moral laws". Buddhaghosa summarizes this view as, "There
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#17328450556402328-405: A middle Upanishadic-era script dated to the second half of the first millennium BCE, is among the earliest expositions about saṃsāra and moksha . In Book I, Section III, the legend of boy Naciketa queries Yama , the lord of death to explain what causes saṃsāra and what leads to liberation. Naciketa inquires: what causes sorrow? Yama explains that suffering and saṃsāra results from a life that
2522-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
2716-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
2910-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
3104-587: A person to be more truly a person in the full sense; the concept presumes an unused human potential of creativity, compassion and understanding which had been blocked and shut out. Moksha is more than liberation from a life-rebirth cycle of suffering ( samsara ); the Vedantic school separates this into two: jivanmukti (liberation in this life) and videhamukti (liberation after death). Moksha in this life includes psychological liberation from adhyasa (fears besetting one's life) and avidya (ignorance or anything that
3298-573: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
3492-500: A repeated process of rebirth. This bondage to repeated rebirth and life, each life subject to injury, disease and aging, was seen as a cycle of suffering. By release from this cycle, the suffering involved in this cycle also ended. This release was called moksha , nirvana , kaivalya , mukti and other terms in various Indian religious traditions but as per Hindu scripture veda one can attain mokhsha by giving up shadripu ( kama, lobha, krodha, moha, mada and matsarya). A desire for
3686-534: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
3880-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
4074-439: A simple ascetic life, without clothes and material possessions. Tamil literature on Ajivikas suggests they practiced Ahimsa (non-violence) and a vegetarian lifestyle. Arthur Basham notes that Buddhist and Jaina texts variously accuse Ajivikas of immorality, unchastity, and worldliness, but they also acknowledge the confusion among Buddhists and Jainas when they observed the simple, ascetic lifestyle of Ajivikas. The Ajivikas had
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#17328450556404268-507: A way to liberation ( moksha ). In Sāmkhya literature, liberation is commonly referred to as kaivalya . In this school, kaivalya means the realization of purusa , the principle of consciousness, as independent from mind and body, as different from prakrti . Like many schools of Hinduism, in Sāmkhya and Yoga schools, the emphasis is on the attainment of knowledge, vidyā or jñāna , as necessary for salvific liberation, moksha . Yoga's purpose
4462-515: Is Karma Yoga , the way of works. The fourth mārga is Rāja Yoga , the way of contemplation and meditation. These mārgas are part of different schools in Hinduism, and their definition and methods to moksha . For example, the Advaita Vedanta school relies on Jñāna Yoga in its teachings of moksha . The marga s need not lead to all forms of moksha, according to some schools of Hinduism. For example,
4656-689: Is a central concept and the utmost aim of human life; the other three aims are dharma (virtuous, proper, moral life), artha (material prosperity, income security, means of life), and kama (pleasure, sensuality, emotional fulfillment). Together, these four concepts are called Puruṣārtha in Hinduism. In some schools of Indian religions, moksha is considered equivalent to and used interchangeably with other terms such as vimoksha , vimukti , kaivalya , apavarga , mukti , nihsreyasa , and nirvana . However, terms such as moksha and nirvana differ and mean different states between various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The term nirvana
4850-514: Is a compound word of sara and sva , meaning "essence of self". After the prayer verses, the Upanishad inquires about the secret to freedom and liberation (mukti). Sarasvati's reply in the Upanishad is: It was through me the Creator himself gained liberating knowledge, I am being, consciousness, bliss, eternal freedom: unsullied, unlimited, unending. My perfect consciousness shines your world, like
5044-523: Is a soul or after life moksha . Both Sāmkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought are mokshaśāstras , suggests Knut Jacobsen , they are systems of salvific liberation and release. Sāmkhya is a system of interpretation, primarily a theory about the world. Yoga is both a theory and a practice. Yoga gained wide acceptance in ancient India, its ideas and practices became part of many religious schools in Hinduism, including those that were very different from Sāmkhya. The eight limbs of yoga can be interpreted as
5238-487: Is a term in Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism , and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, liberation, nirvana , or release. In its soteriological and eschatological senses, it refers to freedom from saṃsāra , the cycle of death and rebirth . In its epistemological and psychological senses, moksha is freedom from ignorance: self-realization, self-actualization and self-knowledge. In Hindu traditions, moksha
5432-508: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
5626-530: 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 Ajivika 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 Ajivika belief in predeterminism does not mean that they were pessimistic. Rather, just like Calvinists belief in predeterminism in Europe,
5820-628: Is an ātman —a central premise of Vedic religion and Jainism. 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 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 . The Ājīvika philosophy, along with
6014-459: Is because a guru can help one develop knowledge of maya (the illusionary nature of the world), a critical step on the path to moksha. Shankara cautions that the guru and historic knowledge may be distorted, so traditions and historical assumptions must be questioned by the individual seeking moksha . Those who are on their path to moksha (samnyasin), suggests Klaus Klostermaier , are quintessentially free individuals, without craving for anything in
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6208-473: Is cited in ancient texts of Buddhism and Jainism to Makkhali Gosala , a contemporary of the Buddha and Mahavira . In Sandaka Sutta the Ājīvikas are said to recognize three emancipators: Nanda Vaccha, Kisa Saṅkicca, and Makkhali Gosāla. Exact origins of Ājīvika is unknown, but generally accepted to be the 5th century BCE. Primary sources and literature of the Ājīvikas are lost, or yet to be found. Everything that
6402-496: Is considered timeless, eliminating the cycle of birth and death ( samsara ). Advaita Vedanta emphasizes Jnana Yoga as the means of achieving moksha . Bliss, claims this school, is the fruit of knowledge (vidya) and work (karma). The Dvaita (dualism) traditions define moksha as the loving, eternal union with God and considered the highest perfection of existence. Dvaita schools suggest every soul encounters liberation differently. Dualist traditions (e.g. Vaishnava ) see God as
6596-467: Is continuous and everywhere. Moksha , suggests Shankara, is a final perfect, blissful state where there can be no change, where there can be no plurality of states. It has to be a state of thought and consciousness that excludes action. He questioned: "How can action-oriented techniques by which we attain the first three goals of man ( kama , artha and dharma ) be useful to attain the last goal, namely moksha ?" Scholars suggest Shankara's challenge to
6790-410: Is difference between these ideas, as explained elsewhere in this article, but they are all soteriological concepts of various Indian religious traditions. The six major orthodox schools of Hinduism have had a historic debate, and disagree over whether moksha can be achieved in this life, or only after this life. Many of the 108 Upanishads discuss amongst other things moksha . These discussions show
6984-521: Is essential to Buddhist nirvana. Realization of atman (atta) is essential to Hindu moksha . Ancient literature of different schools of Hinduism sometimes use different phrases for moksha . For example, Keval jnana or kaivalya ("state of Absolute"), Apavarga , Nihsreyasa , Paramapada , Brahmabhava , Brahmajnana and Brahmi sthiti . Modern literature additionally uses the Buddhist term nirvana interchangeably with moksha of Hinduism. There
7178-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
7372-584: Is freedom. Kathaka Upanishad also explains the role of yoga in personal liberation, moksha . The Svetasvatara Upanishad , another middle-era Upanishad written after Kathaka Upanishad , begins with questions such as why is man born? what is the primal cause behind the universe? what causes joy and sorrow in life? It then examines the various theories, that were then existing, about saṃsāra and release from bondage. Svetasvatara claims that bondage results from ignorance, illusion or delusion; deliverance comes from knowledge. The Supreme Being dwells in every being, he
7566-633: Is generally considered as the founder of the Ājīvika movement. 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
7760-599: Is known about Ājīvika history and its philosophy is from secondary sources, such as the ancient and medieval texts of India. Inconsistent fragments of Ājīvika history are found mostly in Jain texts such as the Bhagvati Sutra and Buddhist texts such as the Samaññaphala Sutta and Sandaka Sutta , and Buddhaghosa 's commentary on Sammannaphala Sutta, with a few mentions in Hindu texts such as Vayu Purana. The Ājīvikas reached
7954-425: Is known for its Niyati (" Fate ") doctrine of absolute fatalism or determinism , the premise that there is no free will , that everything that has happened, is happening and will happen is entirely preordained and a function of cosmic principles. The predetermined fate of living beings was the major distinctive doctrine of their school, along with withholding judgement on how to achieve liberation ( moksha ) from
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8148-462: Is lived absent-mindedly, with impurity, with neither the use of intelligence nor self-examination, where neither mind nor senses are guided by one's atma (soul, self). Liberation comes from a life lived with inner purity, alert mind, led by buddhi (reason, intelligence), realization of the Supreme Self ( purusha ) who dwells in all beings. Kathaka Upanishad asserts knowledge liberates, knowledge
8342-465: Is more common in Buddhism, while moksha is more prevalent in Hinduism . Moksha is derived from the Sanskrit root word, muc , which means to free, let go, release, liberate. According to Jain scriptures, it is a combination of two Sanskrit words, moh (attachment) and kshay (its destruction) The definition and meaning of moksha varies between various schools of Indian religions. Moksha means freedom, liberation, but from what and how
8536-541: 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
8730-428: Is neither created nor destroyed, that which retains its identity by never growing nor expanding nor splitting nor changing, yet that which moves, assembles and combines to form the perceived. The Tamil text of Ajivikas asserts 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 Ajivikas,
8924-454: Is not true knowledge). Many schools of Hinduism according to Daniel Ingalls , see moksha as a state of perfection. The concept was seen as a natural goal beyond dharma . Moksha , in the epics and ancient literature of Hinduism, is seen as achievable by the same techniques necessary to practice dharma . Self-discipline is the path to dharma , moksha is self-discipline that is so perfect that it becomes unconscious, second nature. Dharma
9118-524: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
9312-459: Is release from such avidya, towards the intuition and eternal union with God. Among the Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta schools of Hinduism, liberation and freedom reached within one's life is referred to as jivanmukti , and the individual who has experienced this state is called jivanmukta (self-realized person). Dozens of Upanishads, including those from middle Upanishadic period, mention or describe
9506-447: Is seen as a final release from illusion, and through knowledge ( anubhava ) of one's own fundamental nature, which is Satcitananda . Advaita holds there is no being/non-being distinction between Atman , Brahman , and Paramatman . True knowledge is a direct, permanent realization that the Atman and Brahman are one. This realization instantly removes ignorance and leads to moksha , and
9700-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
9894-580: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
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#173284505564010088-477: Is the primal cause, he is the eternal law, he is the essence of everything, he is nature, he is not a separate entity. Liberation comes to those who know Supreme Being is present as the Universal Spirit and Principle, just as they know butter is present in milk. Such realization, claims Svetasvatara, come from self-knowledge and self-discipline; and this knowledge and realization is liberation from transmigration,
10282-517: Is then seen as a means to remove the avidyā – that is, ignorance or misleading/incorrect knowledge about one self and the universe. It seeks to end ordinary reflexive awareness ( cittavrtti nirodhah ) with deeper, purer and holistic awareness ( asamprājñāta samādhi ). Yoga, during the pursuit of moksha , encourages practice ( abhyāsa ) with detachment ( vairāgya ), which over time leads to deep concentration ( samādhi ). Detachment means withdrawal from outer world and calming of mind, while practice means
10476-406: Is thus a means to moksha . The Samkhya school of Hinduism, for example, suggests that one of the paths to moksha is to magnify one's sattvam . To magnify one's sattvam , one must develop oneself where one's sattvam becomes one's instinctive nature. Many schools of Hinduism thus understood dharma and moksha as two points of a single journey of life, a journey for which the viaticum
10670-413: Is unknown to what degree the available non-Ājīvika sources reflect the actual beliefs and practices of the Ājīvikas. Most of what is known about them was recorded in the literature of rival groups, modern scholars question the reliability of the secondary sources, and whether intentional distortions for dehumanization and criticism were introduced into the records. More recent work by scholars suggests that
10864-411: Is unworldly understanding, a state of bliss. "How can the worldly thought-process lead to unworldly understanding?", asked Nagarjuna. Karl Potter explains the answer to this challenge as one of context and framework, the emergence of broader general principles of understanding from thought processes that are limited in one framework. Adi Shankara in the 8th century AD, like Nagarjuna earlier, examined
11058-405: Is where the schools differ. Moksha is also a concept that means liberation from rebirth or saṃsāra . This liberation can be attained while one is on earth ( jivanmukti ), or eschatologically ( karmamukti , videhamukti ). Some Indian traditions have emphasized liberation on concrete, ethical action within the world. This liberation is an epistemological transformation that permits one to see
11252-526: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
11446-520: The bhakti schools of Hinduism, is devoted to the worship of God, sings his name, anoints his image or idol, and has many sub-schools. Vaishnavas (followers of Vaishnavism) suggest that dharma and moksha cannot be two different or sequential goals or states of life. Instead, they suggest God should be kept in mind constantly to simultaneously achieve dharma and moksha , so constantly that one comes to feel one cannot live without God's loving presence. This school emphasized love and adoration of God as
11640-624: The Buddhist and Jaina scriptures of ancient India. 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 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. The Ājīvika school
11834-884: The Cārvāka philosophy, appealed most to the warrior, industrial, and mercantile classes of ancient Indian society . Ājīvika means "Follower of the Way of Life". Ajivika ( Prakrit : 𑀆𑀚𑀻𑀯𑀺𑀓 , ājīvika ; Sanskrit : आजीविक , IAST: ājīvika ) or adivika ( Prakrit : 𑀆𑀤𑀻𑀯𑀺𑀓 , ādīvika ) are both derived from Sanskrit आजीव ( ājīva ) which literally means "livelihood, lifelong, mode of life". The term Ajivika means "those following special rules with regard to Iivelihood", sometimes connoting "religious mendicants" in ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts. The name Ajivika for an entire philosophy resonates with its core belief in "no free will" and complete niyati , literally "inner order of things, self-command, predeterminism ", leading to
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#173284505564012028-568: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
12222-663: The Ekasarana dharma denies the sayujya form of mukti, where the complete absorption in God deprives jiva of the sweetness and bliss associated with bhakti . Madhavadeva begins the Namghoxa by declaring his admiration for devotees who do not prefer mukti . The three main sub-schools in Vedanta school of Hinduism – Advaita Vedanta , Vishistadvaita and Dvaita – each have their own views about moksha . The Vedantic school of Hinduism suggests
12416-613: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
12610-744: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
12804-526: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
12998-519: The Vaishnavite Ekadandin ascetics. However, according to historian Ajay Mitra Shastri , Varahamihira indeed refers to the Ajivikas, who may have existed as an influential sect in the 6th century. A.L. Basham notes that there are several such instances of Ajivikas being confused with other major sects: for example, the commentator of Achara-sara believes them to be Buddhist, and in Neelakesi ,
13192-587: The eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth , instead believing that fate would lead us there. Ājīvikas further considered the karma doctrine as a fallacy. Ājīvika metaphysics included a theory of atoms , which was later adapted in the Vaiśeṣika school, where everything was composed of atoms, qualities emerged from aggregates of atoms, but the aggregation and nature of these atoms were predetermined by cosmic laws and forces. Ājīvikas were mostly considered as atheists . They believed that in every living being there
13386-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
13580-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
13774-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
13968-597: The 4th century BCE, the era of the Maurya Empire . Riepe refers to Ājīvikas as a distinct heterodox school of Indian tradition. Raju states that "Ājīvikas and Cārvākas can be called Hindus " and adds that "the word Hinduism has no definite meaning". Epigraphical evidence suggests that emperor Ashoka , in the 3rd century BCE, considered Ājīvikas to be more closely related to the schools of Vedic's than to Buddhists, Jainas or other Indian schools of thought. Makkhali Gosala ( Pali ; Sanskrit Gośala Maskariputra , c. 484 BCE)
14162-639: The 5th century CE. The Caves were subsequently occupied by Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. It is unlikely that the Muslims defaced the inscriptions, as the Brahmi script was illegible to them. E. Hultzsch theorized that the defacement took place when the Maukhari (c. 6th century) ruler Ananta-varman installed Hindu images at the Caves. However, Basham dismisses this theory, noting that there is little evidence to support this view and
14356-521: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
14550-561: The 8th century AD, until the arrival of a Mimamsa scholar named Kumarila . Instead of moksha , the Mimamsa school of Hinduism considered the concept of heaven as sufficient to answer the question: what lay beyond this world after death. Other schools of Hinduism, over time, accepted the moksha concept and refined it over time. It is unclear when the core ideas of samsara and moksha developed in ancient India. Patrick Olivelle suggests these ideas likely originated with new religious movements in
14744-401: The Ajivika leader clarifies that his followers should not be mistaken for Digambaras . According to Basham, this suggests that the surviving Ajivikas adopted some of the beliefs and customs of the more popular faiths and possibly merged with them. The Jain commentator Mallisena, who wrote Syadvada-manjari (1292 CE), suggests that the Ajivikas existed during his time; he may have been aware of
14938-546: The Ajivikas in Pundravardhana , enraged at a picture that depicted Gautama Buddha in a negative light. Around 18,000 followers of the Ajivika sect were supposedly executed as a result of this order. The entire story may be apocryphal and fictitious as Ashoka himself contributed for the growth of Ajivikas sect by constructing four caves for Ajivakas at Barabar . An earlier Jaina text, the Bhagavati Sutra , similarly mentions
15132-558: The Ajivikas included the ten Purvas (eight Mahanimittas , two Maggas ) and the Onpatu Katir . The Mahanimittas of Ajivikas claims Bhagavati Sutra was extracted from the teachings Gosala received from Mahavira when he was a disciple. The belief of Ajivikas in absolute determinism and influence of cosmic forces led them to develop extensive sections in their Mahanimittas texts on mapping the sun, moon, planets, and stars and their role in astrology and fortune telling. Isaeva suggests that
15326-503: The Ajivikas of southern India. At least 17 inscriptions from southern India suggest that a tax was imposed on Ajivikas or Acuvas (believed to be a Tamil form of Ajivikas) there. These inscriptions range from the time of the Pallava king Simhavarman II (c. 446 CE) to the 14th century. The last of these inscriptions are dated to 1346 CE ( Shaka 1268), found at three different places around Kolar . E. Hultzsch and Rudolf Hoernlé theorized that
15520-400: The Ajivikas were engraved during the 12th year and the 19th year of his reign (about 258 BCE and 251 BCE respectively, based on a coronation date of 269 BCE). In several instances, the word "Ājīvikas" (𑀆𑀤𑀻𑀯𑀺𑀓𑁂𑀳𑀺, Ādīvikehi ) was later attacked by the chisel, probably by religious rivals, at a time when the Brahmi script was still understood (probably before the 5th century CE). However,
15714-811: The Ajivikas were optimists. The Ajivikas 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 Ajivikas. Makkhali Gosala seems to have combined the ideas of older schools of thought into an eclectic doctrine. He appears to have believed in niyati (destiny), svabhava (nature), sangati (change), and possibly parinama , which may have prompted other philosophical schools to label him variously as ahetuvadin , vainayikavadin , ajnanavadin , and issarakaranavadin . According to him, all beings undergo development ( parinama ). This culminates in
15908-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
16102-521: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
16296-513: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
16490-469: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
16684-507: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
16878-515: The Maurya and the Gupta periods may have been responsible for the persecution of the Ajivikas. The Brhaj-jataka of Varahamihira (6th century) mentions the Ajivikas (among other major ascetic groups) in an astrological context, stating that a person born under a certain planetary influence becomes an Ajivika ascetic. According to the 9th-10th century commentator Utpala , "Ajivika" in this context refers to
17072-521: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
17266-489: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
17460-532: The Nirvana of Buddhism is same as the Brahman in Hinduism, a view other scholars and he disagree with. Buddhism rejects the idea of Brahman , and the metaphysical ideas about soul (atman) are also rejected by Buddhism, while those ideas are essential to moksha in Hinduism. In Buddhism, nirvana is 'blowing out' or 'extinction'. In Hinduism, moksha is 'identity or oneness with Brahman'. Realization of anatta (anatman)
17654-592: The Purusha from what one is not), but from Vedic studies, observance of the Svadharma (personal duties), sticking to Asramas (stages of life). The six major orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy offer the following views on moksha , each for their own reasons: the Nyaya, Vaisesika and Mimamsa schools of Hinduism consider moksha as possible only after death. Samkhya and Yoga schools consider moksha as possible in this life. In
17848-488: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
18042-616: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
18236-449: The Vedanta school, the Advaita sub-school concludes moksha is possible in this life, while Dvaita, Visistadvaita, Shuddhadvait sub-schools of Vedanta tradition believes that moksha is a continuous event, one assisted by loving devotion to God, that extends from this life to post-mortem. Beyond these six orthodox schools, some heterodox schools of Hindu tradition, such as Carvaka, deny there
18430-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
18624-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
18818-407: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
19012-427: The ancient scholars observed that people vary in the quality of virtuous or sinful life they lead, and began questioning how differences in each person's puṇya (merit, good deeds) or pāp (demerit, sin) as human beings affected their afterlife. This question led to the conception of an afterlife where the person stayed in heaven or hell, in proportion to their merit or demerit, then returned to earth and were reborn,
19206-416: The application of effort over time. Such steps are claimed by Yoga school as leading to samādhi, a state of deep awareness, release and bliss called kaivalya . Yoga, or mārga (meaning "way" or "path"), in Hinduism is widely classified into four spiritual approaches. The first mārga is Jñāna Yoga , the way of knowledge. The second mārga is Bhakti Yoga , the way of loving devotion to God. The third mārga
19400-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
19594-517: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
19788-505: The common era, inscriptions suggests that the Ājīvikas had a significant presence in the South Indian state of Karnataka , prominently in Kolar district and some places of Tamil Nadu . The Ājīvika philosophy spread rapidly in ancient South Asia, with a Sangha Geham (community center) for Ājīvikas on the island now known as Sri Lanka and also extending into the western state of Gujarat by
19982-502: The concept of moksha appears in three forms: Vedic, yogic and bhakti. In the Vedic period, moksha was ritualistic. Mokṣa was claimed to result from properly completed rituals such as those before Agni – the fire deity. The significance of these rituals was to reproduce and recite the cosmic-creation event described in the Vedas; the description of knowledge on different levels – adhilokam , adhibhutam , adhiyajnam , adhyatmam – helped
20176-599: The concept of moksha parallels those of Plotinus against the Gnostics , with one important difference: Plotinus accused the Gnostics of exchanging an anthropocentric set of virtues with a theocentric set in pursuit of salvation ; Shankara challenged that the concept of moksha implied an exchange of anthropocentric set of virtues ( dharma ) with a blissful state that has no need for values. Shankara goes on to suggest that anthropocentric virtues suffice. Vaishnavism , one of
20370-575: The conditions of the Maurya and pre-Maurya times. In northern India, Ajivikas may have become insignificant by the Shunga period (1st century BCE), although they may have survived until the 15th century, as suggested by stray references to them in various texts. References in the Vayu Purana suggest that during the Gupta period (fourth-6th century CE) the Ajivika practices had changed substantially, and their sect
20564-609: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
20758-433: The couple continued to live in a corner of the cowshed, and it was there that Bhaddā gave birth to her child." Gosala is described in ancient texts as a contemporary of Mahavira , the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism , and of Gautama Buddha . The Jain Bhagavati Sutra refers to him as Gosala Mankhaliputta ("son of Mankhali"). The text depicts Gosala as having been a disciple of Mahavira's for a period of six years, after which
20952-475: The course of time ( samsarasuddhi ) in final salvation to which all beings are destined under the impact of the factors of niyati (destiny), bhava (nature), and sangati (change). As such, destiny does not appear as the only player, but rather chance or indeterminism plays an equal part in his doctrine. He thus subscribed to niyativada (fatalism) only in the sense that he thought that some future events like salvation for all were strictly determined. Ajivika
21146-639: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
21340-559: The cycle continuing indefinitely. The rebirth idea ultimately flowered into the ideas of saṃsāra , or transmigration – where one's balance sheet of karma determined one's rebirth. Along with this idea of saṃsāra , the ancient scholars developed the concept of moksha , as a state that released a person from the saṃsāra cycle. Moksha release in eschatological sense in these ancient literature of Hinduism, suggests van Buitenen , comes from self-knowledge and consciousness of oneness of supreme soul. Scholars provide various explanations of
21534-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
21728-420: The difference between the world one lives in and moksha , a state of freedom and release one hopes for. Unlike Nagarjuna, Shankara considers the characteristics between the two. The world one lives in requires action as well as thought; our world, he suggests, is impossible without vyavahara (action and plurality). The world is interconnected, one object works on another, input is transformed into output, change
21922-467: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
22116-457: The differences between the schools of Hinduism, a lack of consensus, with a few attempting to conflate the contrasting perspectives between various schools. For example, freedom and deliverance from birth-rebirth, argues Maitrayana Upanishad, comes neither from the Vedanta school's doctrine (the knowledge of one's own Self as the Supreme Soul) nor from the Samkhya school's doctrine (distinction of
22310-456: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
22504-405: The final goal of the Upanishad. Starting with the middle Upanishad era, moksha – or equivalent terms such as mukti and kaivalya – is a major theme in many Upanishads . For example, Sarasvati Rahasya Upanishad, one of several Upanishads of the bhakti school of Hinduism, starts out with prayers to Goddess Sarasvati. She is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, learning and creative arts; her name
22698-543: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
22892-549: The first millennium BCE. The concepts of mukti and moksha , suggests J. A. B. van Buitenen , seem traceable to yogis in Hinduism, with long hair, who chose to live on the fringes of society, given to self-induced states of intoxication and ecstasy, possibly accepted as medicine-men and "sadhus" by ancient Indian society. Moksha to these early concept-developers, was the abandonment of the established order, not in favor of anarchy, but in favor of self-realization, to achieve release from this world. In its historical development,
23086-399: The first step towards mokṣa begins with mumuksutva , that is desire of liberation. This takes the form of questions about self, what is true, why do things or events make us happy or cause suffering, and so on. This longing for liberating knowledge is assisted by, claims Adi Shankara of Advaita Vedanta, a guru (teacher), study of historical knowledge and viveka (critical thinking). This
23280-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
23474-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
23668-452: The growing Hindu, Buddhist and Jain influence. The 14th century Sarva-Darshana-Sangraha , a compendium of the Indian philosophical systems, makes no mention of Ajivikas, which indicates the decline of their sect. Ājīvikas competed with and debated the scholars of Buddhism, Jainism, and Vedic's. The Ājīvika movement is primarily known from historical references left behind in Jain and Buddhist sources, that may therefore be hostile to it. It
23862-503: The height of their prominence in the late 1st millennium BCE, then declined, yet continued to exist in south India until the 14th century CE, as evidenced by inscriptions found in southern India. Ancient texts of Buddhism and Jainism mention a city in the 1st millennium BCE named Savatthi (Sanskrit Śravasti ) as the hub of the Ājīvikas; it was located near Ayodhya in what is now the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh . In later part of
24056-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
24250-758: The ideas of Ajivika influenced Buddhism and various schools of Vedic thought. Riepe provides an example of an influential Ajivika theory, namely, its theory on atomism. Basham proposes that Ajivikas may have possibly influenced the doctrines of the Dvaita Vedanta sub-school of medieval Vedic philosophy. According to the 4th century Buddhist legend Ashokavadana , the Mauryan emperor Bindusara and his chief queen Shubhadrangi were believers of this philosophy, which reached its peak of popularity during this time. Ashokavadana also mentions that, after his conversion to Buddhism, Bindusara's son Ashoka issued an order to kill all
24444-732: The individual transcend to moksa. Knowledge was the means, the ritual its application. By the middle to late Upanishadic period, the emphasis shifted to knowledge, and ritual activities were considered irrelevant to the attainment of moksha . Yogic moksha replaced Vedic rituals with personal development and meditation, with hierarchical creation of the ultimate knowledge in self as the path to moksha . Yogic moksha principles were accepted in many other schools of Hinduism, albeit with differences. For example, Adi Shankara in his book on moksha suggests: अर्थस्य निश्चयो दृष्टो विचारेण हितोक्तितः | न स्नानेन न दानेन प्राणायमशतेन वा || १३ || By reflection, reasoning and instructions of teachers,
24638-478: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
24832-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
25026-479: The last three non-matter. These elements are akata (that which is neither created nor destroyed), vanjha (barren, that which never multiplies or reproduces) and have an existence independent of the other. The elements, asserts Ajivika theory in the Tamil text Manimekalai, are made of paramanu (atoms), where atoms were defined as that which cannot be further subdivided, that which cannot penetrate another atom, that which
25220-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
25414-503: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
25608-529: The many expansions in Hindu Vedic ideas of life and the afterlife. In the Vedas, there were three stages of life: studentship, householdship and retirement. During the Upanishadic era, Hinduism expanded this to include a fourth stage of life: complete abandonment . In Vedic literature, there are three modes of experience: waking, dream and deep sleep. The Upanishadic era expanded these modes to include turiyam –
25802-420: The meaning of moksha in epistemological and psychological senses. For example, Deutsche sees moksha as transcendental consciousness, the perfect state of being, of self-realization, of freedom and of "realizing the whole universe as the Self". Moksha in Hinduism, suggests Klaus Klostermaier , implies a setting-free of hitherto fettered faculties, a removing of obstacles to an unrestricted life, permitting
25996-513: The means and the end, transcending moksha ; the fruit of bhakti is bhakti itself. In the history of Indian religious traditions, additional ideas and paths to moksha beyond these three, appeared over time. The words moksha , nirvana ( nibbana ) and kaivalya are sometimes used synonymously, because they all refer to the state that liberates a person from all causes of sorrow and suffering. However, in modern era literature, these concepts have different premises in different religions. Nirvana,
26190-570: The means of achieving moksha . The Vishistadvaita tradition, led by Ramanuja , defines avidya and moksha differently from the Advaita tradition. To Ramanuja, avidya is a focus on the self, and vidya is a focus on a loving god. The Vishistadvaita school argues that other schools of Hinduism create a false sense of agency in individuals, which makes the individual think oneself as potential or self-realized god. Such ideas, claims Ramanuja, decay to materialism, hedonism and self worship. Individuals forget Ishvara (God). Mukti, to Vishistadvaita school,
26384-501: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
26578-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
26772-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
26966-593: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
27160-409: The mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
27354-443: The muddled mind and cognitive apparatus. For example, Patanjali 's Yoga Sutra suggests: After the dissolution of avidya (ignorance), comes removal of communion with material world, this is the path to Kaivalyam. Nirvana and moksha , in all traditions, represent resting in one's true essence, named Purusha or Atman, or pointed at as Nirvana, but described in a very different way. Some scholars, states Jayatilleke, assert that
27548-435: The northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of
27742-535: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
27936-434: The object of love, for example, a personified monotheistic conception of Shiva , Vishnu or Adishakti . By immersing oneself in the love of God, one's karmas slough off, one's illusions decay, and truth is lived. Both the worshiped and worshiper gradually lose their illusory sense of separation and only One beyond all names remains. This is salvation to dualist schools of Hinduism. Dvaita Vedanta emphasizes Bhakti Yoga as
28130-536: The oldest surviving cave temples of ancient India, and are called the Barabar Caves in Jehanabad district of Bihar . The Barabar caves were carved out of granite, has a highly polished internal cave surfaces, and each consists of two chambers, the first is a large rectangular hall, the second is a small, circular, domed chamber. These were probably used for meditation. The Ashokan dedications of several Barabar Caves to
28324-587: The only cave in which the word Ajivikehi remains intact is among the three caves where Ananta-varman installed a Hindu image. Based on similarities of carvings at the Barabar and the Udaygiri Caves , scholar A. Banerji Sastri theorized that the Kalinga monarch Kharavela (1st-2nd century BCE) evicted the Ajivikas to favour Jains, but Basham finds this evidence inconclusive. According to Basham, any ruler of Magadha between
28518-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
28712-436: The original Gosāla, who was Mahavira's companion, was once dead and that the soul now inhabiting the apparent Gosāla in front of him was a reanimated, different Gosala. This argument was declared a form of sophistry by Mahavira, and this led to a significant break in the relations between the two. Several rock-cut caves belonging to Ājīvikas are dated to the times of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (r. 273 BCE to 232 BCE). These are
28906-421: The original inscriptions being deep, they remain easily decipherable. After the decline of the Maurya Empire in the 2nd century BCE, the Ajivikas find only occasional mentions in the Sanskrit literature and do not appear to have been serious rivals to other sects. The final version of the Buddhist and Jain scriptures were compiled at a later period, but the description of Ajivikas in these texts likely represents
29100-466: The other hand, starts with the premise that everything is the Self; there is no consciousness in the state of nirvana, but everything is One unified consciousness in the state of moksha . Kaivalya, a concept akin to moksha , rather than nirvana, is found in some schools of Hinduism such as the Yoga school. Kaivalya is the realization of aloofness with liberating knowledge of one's self and disentanglement from
29294-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
29488-513: The otherwise inexplicable fact that the Ājīvikas did practice asceticism. [...] [T]he popularity of the Ājīvika doctrine in ancient times, such that it could rival that of both Jainism and Buddhism, also make sense if this doctrine was really not so radically different from these traditions as its presentation in Jain and Buddhist sources suggests. Paul Dundas states that the Jain and Buddhist texts cannot be considered reliable source of Ājīvika history and philosophy, because "it seems doubtful whether
29682-600: The path of moksha include (1) vivekah (discrimination, critical reasoning) between everlasting principles and fleeting world; (2) viragah (indifference, lack of craving) for material rewards; (3) samah (calmness of mind), and (4) damah (self restraint, temperance ). The Brahmasutrabhasya adds to the above four requirements, the following: uparati (lack of bias, dispassion), titiksa (endurance, patience), sraddha (faith) and samadhana (intentness, commitment). The Advaita tradition considers moksha achievable by removing avidya (ignorance) by knowledge. Moksha
29876-513: The path to moksha , as: Beyond caste, creed, family or lineage, That which is without name and form, beyond merit and demerit, That which is beyond space, time and sense-objects, You are that, God himself; Meditate this within yourself. ||Verse 254|| Moksha is a concept associated with saṃsāra (birth-rebirth cycle). Samsara originated with religious movements in the first millennium BCE. These movements such as Buddhism, Jainism and new schools within Hinduism, saw human life as bondage to
30070-471: The path to "moksha" (salvation and release), rather than works and knowledge. Their focus became divine virtues, rather than anthropocentric virtues. Daniel Ingalls regards Vaishnavas' position on moksha as similar to the Christian position on salvation, and Vaishnavism as the school whose views on dharma , karma and moksha dominated the initial impressions and colonial-era literature on Hinduism, through
30264-522: The political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from
30458-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
30652-469: The premise that good simple living is not a means to salvation or moksha , just a means to true livelihood, predetermined profession and way of life. The name came to imply that school of Indian philosophy which lived a good simple mendicant-like livelihood for its own sake and as part of its predeterministic beliefs, rather than for the sake of after-life or motivated by any soteriological reasons. Some scholars spell Ajivika as Ajivaka. Ājīvika philosophy
30846-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
31040-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
31234-596: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
31428-490: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
31622-579: The release from pain and suffering seems to lie at the root of striving for moksha, and it is commonly believed that moksha is an otherwordly reality, only achievable at the end of life, not during. However there is also a notion that moksha can be achieved during life in the form of a state of liberation, known as jivan-mukti , although this is still reliant on personal and spiritual endeavours attributed to attaining moksha. Eschatological ideas evolved in Hinduism. In earliest Vedic literature, heaven and hell sufficed soteriological curiosities. Over time,
31816-558: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
32010-491: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
32204-551: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
32398-594: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
32592-498: The soul is formless, Ajivikas asserted the soul has a material form, one that helps meditation. They also believed the soul passes through many births and ultimately progresses unto its pre-destined nirvana (salvation). Basham states, that some texts suggest evidence of Vaishnavism -type devotional practices among some Ajivikas. Ajivikas developed a theory of elements and atoms similar to the Vaisheshika school of Vedic's. Everything
32786-399: The stage beyond deep sleep. The Vedas suggest three goals of man: kama , artha and dharma . To these, the Upanishadic era added moksha . The acceptance of the concept of moksha in some schools of Hindu philosophy was slow. These refused to recognize moksha for centuries, considering it irrelevant. The Mimamsa school, for example, denied the goal and relevance of moksha well into
32980-430: The state of liberation, jivanmukti . Some contrast jivanmukti with videhamukti ( moksha from samsara after death). Jivanmukti is a state that transforms the nature, attributes and behaviors of an individual, claim these ancient texts of Hindu philosophy. For example, according to Naradaparivrajaka Upanishad, the liberated individual shows attributes such as: When a Jivanmukta dies he achieves Paramukti and becomes
33174-405: The term Ajivika ( Acuva ) refers to Jains in this context, and some others—such as A. Chakravarti—doubt the equivalence of the terms "Ajivika" and "Acuva". However, Basham believes that these inscriptions indeed refer to the Ajivikas and that they may have survived there until the 15th century, as suggested by the writings of Vaidyanatha Dikshita . The Ajivikas may have completely declined because of
33368-528: The truth and reality behind the fog of ignorance. Moksha has been defined not merely as absence of suffering and release from bondage to saṃsāra. Various schools of Hinduism also explain the concept as presence of the state of paripurna-brahmanubhava (the experience of oneness with Brahman , the One Supreme Self), a state of knowledge, peace and bliss. For example, Vivekachudamani – an ancient book on moksha , explains one of many meditative steps on
33562-433: The truth is known, Not by ablutions, not by making donations, nor by performing hundreds of breath control exercises. || Verse 13 || Bhakti moksha created the third historical path, where neither rituals nor meditative self-development were the way, rather it was inspired by constant love and contemplation of God, which over time results in a perfect union with God. Some Bhakti schools evolved their ideas where God became
33756-641: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
33950-440: The two had a falling out and parted ways. According to the Bhagvati Sutra , Makkhali Gosala met with Mahāvīra again later in life, but Gosala asserted to Mahavira that he was not the same person. Makkhali Gosala referred to the example of a sesame plant which "had been pulled up, and had temporarily died, but it had been replanted and thus reanimated, becoming once more living, while the seven pods had developed". Gosāla declared that
34144-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
34338-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
34532-514: The works of Thibaut, Max Müller and others. The concept of moksha appears much later in ancient Indian literature than the concept of dharma . The proto-concept that first appears in the ancient Sanskrit verses and early Upanishads is mucyate , which means "freed" or "released". In the middle and later Upanishads, such as the Svetasvatara and Maitri , the word moksha appears and begins becoming an important concept. The Katha Upanishad ,
34726-413: The worldly life, thus are neither dominated by, nor dominating anyone else. Vivekachudamani , which literally means "Crown Jewel of Discriminatory Reasoning", is a book devoted to moksa in Vedanta philosophy. It explains what behaviors and pursuits lead to moksha , as well what actions and assumptions hinder moksha . The four essential conditions, according to Vivekachudamani, before one can commence on
34920-402: The Ājīvika were perhaps misrepresented by Jain and Buddhist sources. [ Johannes Bronkhorst's ] claim is that, whereas the Jains teach that one can both stop the influx of new karma and rid oneself of old karma through ascetic practice, Gosāla taught that one could only stop the influx of new karma. [...] Ascetic practice can be effective in preventing further karmic influx, which helps to explain
35114-458: 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 . The oldest descriptions of the Ājīvika fatalists and their founder Gosāla can be found both in
35308-497: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
35502-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
35696-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
35890-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
36084-722: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
36278-538: 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. In later texts, the Tamil Nīlakēci , a story of two divinities, Okkali and Ōkali, relates the Ājīvikas instructed men in the scriptures. Ajivikas believed that in every being, there is a soul (Atman). However, unlike Jains and various orthodox schools of Hinduism that held that
36472-614: Was composed of minuscule atoms, according to Ajivikas, and qualities of things are derived from aggregates of atoms, but the aggregation and nature of these atoms were predetermined by cosmic forces. The description of Ajivikas' atomism is inconsistent with those described in Buddhist and Vedic texts. According to three Tamil texts, the Ajivikas held there exists seven kayas (Sanskrit: काय, assemblage, collection, elemental categories): pruthvi-kaya (earth), apo-kaya (water), tejo-kaya (fire), vayo-kaya (air), sukha (joy), dukkha (sorrow), and jiva (life). The first four relate to matter,
36666-414: Was declining rapidly. In some of the Barabar Caves inscriptions, the words referring to the Ajivikas appear to have been defaced, although the rest of the text appears intact. The selective nature of these defacements suggests that they were carried out by the religious rivals of the Ajivikas. This defacement must have taken place when the Brahmi script had still not been forgotten, likely some time before
36860-435: Was discipline and self-training. Over time, these ideas about moksha were challenged. Dharma and moksha , suggested Nagarjuna in the 2nd century, cannot be goals on the same journey. He pointed to the differences between the world we live in, and the freedom implied in the concept of moksha . They are so different that dharma and moksha could not be intellectually related. Dharma requires worldly thought, moksha
37054-587: 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 Ajivikas, 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 Ajivikas 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
37248-855: Was one of the main interests of the Ajivikas. 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 the universe, according to Ajivikas, was pre-determined, 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 Ajivikas 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
37442-454: Was the son of Mankha, a professional mendicant. His mother was Bhaddā. His name Gosala "cowshed" 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 cowshed ( gosālā ) ... Since he could find no shelter elsewhere
37636-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
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