The Ajivika community did not live and die in obscurity; for a time it stood under the shadow of powerful patrons. Several major figures of the Mauryan world are remembered as having supported or favored Ajivika ascetics. Bindusara, the second Mauryan emperor and father of Ashoka, is portrayed in traditional sources as either a follower of, or at least a sympathetic patron toward, the Ajivikas. This suggests that deterministic Ajivika teachings were not merely a marginal curiosity, but resonated enough to find a place at the imperial court.

Royal favor appears again in the generation after Ashoka. Dasharatha Maurya, Ashoka’s successor and grandson, is associated through inscriptions with the donation of caves to Ajivika ascetics in the hills near Gaya, continuing a pattern of Mauryan patronage. Such gifts of monastic dwellings were not trivial gestures; they signaled recognition of the Ajivikas as a significant śramaṇa order worthy of enduring endowments. The image that emerges is of a movement woven into the religious tapestry of early Magadha, sharing the landscape with Buddhists, Jains, and other ascetic currents.

Beyond the throne, Ajivika mendicants also appear to have drawn support from merchants and wealthy lay followers. Literary and epigraphic hints point to a network of householders who offered food, clothing, and shelter, much as they did for Buddhist and Jain renunciants. This pattern of patronage from both royal and mercantile circles helps explain how a rigorously deterministic path could sustain organized communities over several centuries. For a time, at least, the Ajivikas walked the same roads, inhabited the same caves, and drew on the same streams of generosity as their more enduring spiritual rivals.