Lomasa Rishi - An Ajivaka Sage who lived before Asoka's period?

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Dear All, A cave named Lomas Rishi cave was created Barabar Hills during Maurya period of 323 BC - 185 BC and got dedicated to Ajivaka Cult. (Ajivaka is another religion just similar to Jain or Buddhist regligion. The founder of this religion was Gosala who was a student of Mahaveera for some time, but left to found(?) or propogate Ajivaka religion) Now the question is why a cave that is dedicated to Ajivaka cult should get named "Lomas Rishi cave" if Lomasa Rishi himself was not the founder or follower of Ajikaka cult? So I think that even Sage Lomasa must have been an Ajikaka and might have lived prior to Mauryan Asoka's period. He might have lived prior or after Gosala. Note: From an astrologer's perspective, is it that available "Lomasa Samhita is a text written by Lomasa Rishi, the Ajivaka sage, who lived before Asoka's period" - i.e. around BC 300 or so?Love and regards,SreenadhI would like to share the info I got from the followin URL: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~tart/arth382/lecture5.html==================== Lomas Rishi cave Barabar Hills Maurya 323 - 185 The Lomas Rishi cave, illustrated in your syllabus, is one of the few bits of architecture left to us from the Maurya period. It is a cult-shrine excavation created for the Ajivaka sect by in Ashoka’s time and probably by order of Ashoka himself. The nearly-duplicate excavation nearby bears an inscription claiming it’s patronage for the emperor. What we see is an arched architectural facade carved in relief on a granite wall that was pierced and hollowed out to create an architectural interior. It is a sculptural depiction of a structure in wood, brick, plaster, and thatch, so carefully detailed that we can reconstruct the building on which it appears to be based. The facade depicts a pair of slightly canted pillars supporting an arched roof. The roof is composed of three layers and carries a finial at its peak. The pillars are connected above by three arched ribs. Between these are depicted an openwork lattice and a frieze of elephants marching out of the mouths of crocodilian makara. The depiction of beam ends and connecting pieces seems to display a precise copy of wood joinery and carpentry. A slightly canted entrance way leads an interior that represents a barrel vaulted hall connecting to a circular, vaulted inner chamber. Though this is somewhat unfinished in the Lomas Rishi cave, the Sudhama cave a hundred or so feet away, excavated in the same boulder, shows the same plan in a finished form, though in this case the facade is left undecorated. There are a couple of points of particular interest for us here. The first is the carving of an architectural form into the "living" rock of a hill side. Like the technique of carving in stone in general this may be a Maurya adaptation of a form they found in Achaemenid Persia. The actual forms here, on the other hand are peculiarly Indian and outside of the technique, there is nothing here one can trace to any non-Indian source. The Ajivaka sect, which never had a popular following, was one of those heterodox Upanisadic ascetic movements of the Buddha’s time, that seems to have died out soon after. The form of the structure is pertinent. The structure built from sawn and joined carpentry of careful design records the elite architecture of the period, and reveals its great interiors to use vaulted forms.==================== I would like to share the following info from the following URL as well: http://varnam.nationalinterest.in/2009/09/the-harappan-angulam/ ========================The Harappan angulamDuring the time of Emperor Asoka and his successor Dasaratha, seven caves were constructed in Barabar and Nagarjuni hills, about 47 km from Gaya; during the Mauryan times, these hills encircled the city of Rajagriha. In the thirteenth year of his reign Asoka donated two caves in Barabar hills to Ajivikas. He donated one more in the 20th year of his reign while the Third Buddhist Council was going on, and all these were documented carefully with inscriptions inside the cave. The caves in Nagarjuni hills were the work of Asoka’s successor – his grandson Dasaratha – and these caves, like the ones in Barabar hills were donated to the Ajivikas[5]. These caves had circular roofs and the surfaces were polished. When these caves were measured, it was found that they were not constructed to random dimensions, but to a well known measure from the Harappan period: the angulam[2]. The urbanized Harappan civilization with elaborate town planning had knowledge of geometry and standardized measures. Statistical analysis of various Harappan settlements has shown that the basic unit of measurement was 17.63 mm[3]. This is taken to be one angulam and 108 angulams one dhanus. Various dimensions in the Harappan site of Dholavira are integral multiple of dhanus. Now at a different site — Kalibangan — a terracota scale was found and when the measure between the tick marks was analyzed, it was found to be 17.5 mm. This also matched the measurement found in ivory and metal scales and shell markings at other sites[1]. The angulam is approximately 1.763 cms in Harappa, 1.75 in Kalibangan, and 1.77 in Lothal. The Arthashashtra derives larger units from angulam: garhapatya dhanus is 108 angulams; 1 danda, 96 angulams. In the Mauryan caves, it was found that the danda measured the cave perfectly. For example the Lomas Rishi cave was 6 dandas long and 3.5 dandas wide and the Sudaman cave, 10 dandas long and 3.5 dandas wide. There is some fine print here as the Arthashastra provides confusing descriptions for various measures: one hasta is either 24, 28, or 54 angulams and one danda is 96 or 192 angulams. Since 96 was used by later texts, that measure was chosen. What makes this interesting is that while cutting caves through hard rock, the Mauryans did not randomly dig through; the caves were carefully planned and constructed with pre-determined dimensions. Two caves in Nagarjuni hills had the same dimension, so did two caves in Barabar hills. This also reveals that the Harappan measures were used in the Gangetic plain, even after 2000 years.========================

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Dear sreenadh Ji Thanks for this post Ajivaka s were not a organised sect sure ,it is contempary to mahavira according Jain texts and none of ajivaka litterature is available they were one of largest during the time of chandra gupta maurya and all asokan edicts we can see them as No-3 ,means highest in Numbr even than the jains ( the religion of asokas father ) after hindus and budhists i think ( if my memory is correct ) rgrds sunil nair