Makkhali Gosala

Makkhali Gosala
Makkhali Gosala
On the left: Mahakashyapa meets an Ajivika and learns of the Parinirvana[1]
Personal
ReligionFounder of Ajivika
Views of the six heretical teachers
The views of six śramaṇa in the Pāli Canon, known as the six heretical teachers, based on the Sāmaññaphala Sutta.[2]
Pūraṇa Kassapa
Amoralism
(akiriyavāda; natthikavāda)		There is no reward or punishment for either good or bad deeds.
Makkhali Gośāla (Ājīvika)
Fatalism
(ahetukavāda; niyativāda)		We are powerless; suffering is pre-destined.
Ajita Kesakambalī (Charvaka)
Materialism
(ucchedavāda; natthikavāda)		Live happily; with death, all is annihilated.
Pakudha Kaccāyana
Eternalism and categoricalism (sassatavāda; sattakāyavāda)Matter, pleasure, pain and the soul are eternal and do not interact.
Mahavira (Jainism)
Restraint
(mahāvrata)		Be endowed with, cleansed by, and suffused with [merely] the avoidance of all evil.[3]
Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta (Ajñana)
Agnosticism
(amarāvikkhepavāda)		"I don't think so. I don't think in that way or otherwise. I don't think not or not not." Suspension of judgement.

Makkhali Gosala (Pāli; BHS: Maskarin Gośāla; Jain Prakrit sources: Gosala Mankhaliputta) or Manthaliputra Goshalak (b. about 523 BCE) was an ascetic ajivika teacher of ancient India. He was a contemporary of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and of Mahavira, the last and 24th Tirthankara of Jainism.

  1. ^ Marianne Yaldiz, Herbert Härtel, Along the Ancient Silk Routes: Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums; an Exhibition Lent by the Museum Für Indische Kunst, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982 p. 78
  2. ^ "DN 2 Sāmaññaphala Sutta; The Fruits of the Contemplative Life". www.dhammatalks.org. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
  3. ^ Bhikku, Ñāṇamoli; Bhikku, Bodhi (9 November 1995). The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (Fourth ed.). Simon and Schuster. pp. 1258–59. ISBN 978-0-86171-072-0. Retrieved 10 July 2024.