The material traces of the Ajivikas are few, yet they are clear where they do appear. The most solid archaeological testimony comes from the Barabar caves in Bihar, where Mauryan-era inscriptions explicitly record that Emperor Ashoka dedicated specific rock-cut caves to Ajivika ascetics. These caves, such as Sudama and Lomas Rishi, exhibit the highly polished stone surfaces associated with early imperial patronage and were evidently intended for ascetic habitation. Nearby, in the Nagarjuni (often spelled Nāgārjunī) hills, further caves bear inscriptions from Ashoka’s grandson, Dasaratha Maurya, again stating that these spaces were granted to the Ajivikas. Together, these dedicatory records show that the Ajivikas were not merely a literary memory but a community receiving royal support over more than one reign.

Beyond this core region, the archaeological picture becomes thinner and more tentative. Some inscriptions in South India, written in early Tamil-Brahmi, have been read as referring to Ajivika ascetics or donors, suggesting that the community’s reach extended beyond the Gangetic heartland, though such identifications are debated among specialists. Scholars have also proposed that certain rock-cut caves in Bihar and nearby areas, on the basis of architectural style and proximity to known Ajivika inscriptions, may originally have been associated with this order, but these attributions remain less secure. What stands out, however, is that no distinct Ajivika scriptures, images, or characteristic ritual objects have been firmly identified in the archaeological record. The Ajivikas thus appear primarily through the negative space of what is not found, and through the few inscriptions that explicitly name them.

This sparse but pointed evidence resonates with the broader spiritual portrait of the Ajivikas as an austere, determinist movement living largely on the margins of more dominant traditions. Their presence is traced not through a rich material culture of icons and monuments, but through rock-cut shelters and brief donative formulas carved into stone. The Barabar and Nagarjuni caves, with their polished interiors and clear dedicatory inscriptions, stand as the most tangible witnesses to a path that otherwise survives mainly in the reports of its rivals. In this way, archaeology mirrors the Ajivikas’ own emphasis on an impersonal, inexorable order: their historical footprint is small, yet where it appears, it is sharply defined and difficult to ignore.