Buddhist and Jain portrayals of the Ājīvikas are almost entirely polemical, and they converge in depicting them as serious rivals whose core doctrine was profoundly misguided. Both traditions focus their criticism on the Ājīvika teaching of strict determinism (niyati), the view that the course of beings is fixed in such a way that individual effort, ethical striving, and spiritual practice cannot alter the final outcome. From the Buddhist perspective, this stance is classified among “wrong views” and placed in the same orbit as other heterodox teachings that undermine the law of karma and the possibility of liberation through the Noble Eightfold Path. Such determinism is seen as morally corrosive because it appears to negate the meaningfulness of wholesome and unwholesome actions, and spiritually futile because it denies the transformative power of insight and practice.

Jain sources, while sharing this basic critique, frame the conflict in more personal and narrative terms, especially through the figure of Makkhali Gosāla. He is remembered as an early companion of Mahāvīra who later breaks away, founds the Ājīvika movement, and becomes a doctrinal opponent. In this light, Ājīvika determinism is condemned for rejecting the Jain understanding of karma as something that can be bound or shed through right conduct, austerity, and knowledge. By denying the efficacy of such effort, the Ājīvika view is portrayed as undermining the very heart of Jain ascetic discipline and moral responsibility, and Gosāla himself is depicted as having gone astray both intellectually and spiritually.

Taken together, these portrayals suggest that Buddhists and Jains regarded the Ājīvikas not merely as neutral fellow ascetics, but as dangerous competitors whose teachings could divert seekers from what they considered the true path. The Ājīvikas are consistently grouped among “heretical” or “wrong” teachers, their doctrine of niyati serving as a kind of negative mirror against which Buddhist and Jain emphases on karma, ethical agency, and purposeful practice are sharpened. In opposing the claim that effort is ultimately ineffective, Buddhists and Jains reaffirm their own conviction that liberation depends on deliberate cultivation, whether through the Eightfold Path or through rigorous asceticism and karmic purification.