Ājīvika (also written Ajivika or Ajivaka, literally means "living" in Sanskrit) was a system of ancient Indian philosophy and an ascetic movement of the Mahajanapada period in the Indian subcontinent. Ājīvika was primarily a heterodox Indian (Nāstika) system. The Ājīvikas may simply have been a more loosely-organized group of wandering ascetics (shramanas or sannyasins). Some of its prominent figures were Makkhali Gosala and Sanjaya Belatthaputta.

Ājīvika is thought to be contemporaneous to other early Indian nāstika philosophical schools of thought, such as Cārvāka, Jainism and Buddhism. While the early nāstika systems such as Cārvāka and Ājīvika gradually became extinct or evolved into others, the Jain and Buddhist traditions spun off into what may be described today as separate religions, distinct from Hinduism (which is now restrictively meant to encompass only the six orthodox Āstikaphilosophical systems).

Ājīvika reached the height of its popularity during the rule of the Mauryan emperor Bindusara around the 4th century BC. Several rock-cut caves belonging to this sect, built during the times of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (r. 273 BC to 232 BC) have been found at Barabar Caves, Jehanabad district, Bihar.^[2]

Sources[edit]

Having being extinct for a long time, what information is known about the Ājīvika movement is primarily from historical references left behind in Jain and Buddhist sources, that may therefore be hostile to it. According to some of these sources, the Ājīvikas believed that a cycle of reincarnation of the soul was determined by a precise and non-personal cosmic principle called niyati (destiny or fate) that was completely independent of the person's actions. The same sources therefore make them out to be strict fatalists, who did not believe inkarma.

More recent work by scholars suggests that the Ajivika 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 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.^[3]