Sanjaya Belatthaputta

Sanjaya Belatthiputta (Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta; literally, "Sanjaya of the Belattha clan"), also referred as Sanjaya Vairatiputra was an Indian ascetic teacher who lived around the 6th or 5th century BCE, contemporaneous with Mahavira and the Buddha, and was a proponent of the sceptical ajñana school of thought.

Sanjaya is thought to be the first teacher of the future Buddha's future two great disciples, Maha-Moggallana and Sariputta. Both of them were followers of a person named Sanjaya Parabajjaka (Sanjaya the wanderer). Sanjaya Parabajjaka is considered to be same as Sanjaya Belatthiputta by many scholars.(These two future arahants ultimately left Sanjaya's tutelage as it did not address their unresolved desire to end ultimate suffering. Sanjaya Parabajjaka also had a follower named Suppiya.

Hecker (1994) contextualizes Sanjaya's thought as "a kind of dialectical existentialism" in juxtaposition to the popular materialist views of the day (for instance, typified by the ascetic teacher Ajita Kesakambalī.) For example, in the Samannaphala Sutta (DN 2), Sanjaya is recorded as saying:

In the Pali literature, Sanjaya's teachings have been characterized as "evasive" or "agnostic". In the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1), Sanjaya's views are deemed to be amaravikkhepavada, "endless equivocation" or "a theory of eel-wrigglers."

In Jaina literature, Sanjaya is identified as a Jaina sage (Skt., muni). It is believed that he was influenced by Jaina doctrine although Jaina philosophers were critical of Sanjaya.

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