The Ajivika movement thrived chiefly in the rich plains of eastern India, where powerful dynasties and accessible trade routes made it feel as bustling as a modern-day tech hub. Its heartland lay in Magadha (today’s southern Bihar), with Rajgir and Pataliputra serving as vital meeting points for its deterministic teachings. Carved into the hillside near Gaya, the Barabar Caves provided a dramatic backdrop for Ajivika monks—an echo of Bihar’s current push to showcase these rock-cut sanctuaries as tourism jewels.

Further north, Kosala (around present-day eastern Uttar Pradesh) harbored smaller but significant Ajivika communities, drawing disciples who journeyed from Sravasti and nearby towns. Down the eastern seaboard, Kalinga—ruled by King Kharavela in the 1st century BCE—became another stronghold. His patronage helped spread Ajivika ideas along coastal trade arteries, much like today’s information highways.

Beyond these regions, the movement never quite managed to set deep roots; its deterministic outlook collided with the more flexible doctrines of Buddhism and Jainism, which resonated more widely across the subcontinent. Yet the footprints left in Bihar’s limestone and in inscriptions along ancient highways remind us that Ajivika ideas once rippled across eastern India with as much force as modern currents reshaping society.