Within the landscape of early Indian śramaṇa traditions, the Ajivika community is generally traced back to the figure of Makkhali Gosala, also known as Maskarin Gosala. Sources portray him as the central teacher who gave the movement its distinctive identity, placing him alongside the Buddha and Mahavira as a major spiritual interlocutor of that era. The sect is understood to have arisen around the 6th–5th century BCE, in the same broad historical horizon that saw the crystallization of both Buddhism and Jainism. This temporal setting is significant, for it situates Ajivika thought within a vibrant and competitive milieu of renunciant orders, each offering a different vision of liberation and the structure of reality.

Seen in this light, the Ajivika tradition can be approached as a rigorous experiment in radical determinism. While other paths emphasized ethical effort, ascetic discipline, or insight as transformative, the Ajivikas became known for affirming that all events unfold according to an inexorable destiny, beyond the reach of human alteration. The fact that Makkhali Gosala is remembered as the founder during this formative period suggests that his teaching crystallized a worldview powerful enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the more enduring systems of Buddhism and Jainism. To contemplate the origins of the Ajivikas, therefore, is to glimpse a moment when multiple spiritual visions contended over the deepest questions of freedom, fate, and the possibility of inner change.