Early Ajivika doctrines wove themselves tightly into the tapestry of India’s earliest cosmic maps, treating the universe not as a one-off creation but as an endless, self-running engine. Time was seen as beginningless and eternal, split into vast cycles of formation, preservation, dissolution and rest—think of it as an ancient version of a “cosmic bounce,” long before modern physicists toyed with cyclic Big Bang models.

At the heart of Ajivika cosmology sits niyati, or destiny. Everything that happens, from the birth of stars to the smallest leaf falling in autumn, unfolds by iron-clad law. Free will takes a backseat; the universe simply ticks along, driven by its built-in program. That sort of fatalism stood in sharp relief against early Buddhist and Jain emphasis on individual effort and karma. While those traditions held out hope that right conduct could shape one’s fate, Ajivikas shrugged and pointed to the cosmic clockwork—no one rewinds or fast-forwards it.

Their view of matter echoes both atomism and Vedic element theory: eternal particles clump and disperse under niyati’s rule, giving rise to worlds, beings and the very gods themselves. Heaven, earth and underworld form a grand layered structure, but none of it emerges from divine will—just matter doing its thing according to preset patterns.

Often overshadowed by their better-remembered rivals, Ajivikas nonetheless enriched early Indian cosmology by insisting on a cosmos that’s self-governing, cyclical and utterly impartial. In a political season buzzing with debates over destiny and choice, their ancient drumbeat reminds that questions of free will versus determinism are hardly new. And perhaps there’s something oddly comforting in picturing the universe as a well-oiled wheel, spinning on without a whisper of divine intervention—just pure, unvarnished niyati.