Within the shared world of early Indian renunciant movements, the Ajivikas stood out for their radical commitment to determinism. They taught that everything unfolds according to an impersonal fate (niyati), such that free will is effectively nonexistent. This meant that even spiritual liberation was fixed in advance, not something to be won or lost through choice. Buddhists and Jains, by contrast, placed great weight on individual agency: intentional action, ethical conduct, and disciplined practice were seen as genuinely capable of reshaping one’s future. For them, karma functioned as an effective moral law, while for Ajivikas it operated entirely within a predetermined script and did not fundamentally alter destiny.

This divergence is especially clear in their respective understandings of the path to liberation. Ajivikas held that every being must pass through a fixed, finite sequence of rebirths, after which liberation arrives inevitably, regardless of what one does. Spiritual discipline, therefore, could not shorten or change this process; it was simply part of what fate had already decreed. Buddhists taught that liberation depends on understanding and practicing a specific path, such as the Noble Eightfold Path, and that ignorance and craving can be uprooted through effort. Jains, similarly, taught that liberation requires rigorous ethical conduct, non-violence, and asceticism, through which karmic bondage is actively reduced and eventually eliminated.

The role of human effort and ascetic practice thus took on very different meanings. Ajivikas were known for severe austerities, including nudity among some practitioners, yet these practices were not regarded as effective means to liberation. Rather, such conduct expressed one’s predetermined nature and role in the cosmic order. Buddhists and Jains also valued ascetic discipline, but for them it functioned as a purposeful tool: ethical restraint and meditative training could refine the mind, purify karma, and hasten spiritual progress. Teaching, learning, and practice were therefore meaningful enterprises in Buddhist and Jain communities, whereas within the Ajivika vision they occurred only because fate itself required them, not because they could alter the ultimate outcome.