Although the Ajivika community itself faded from the religious landscape, its distinctive vision did not vanish without leaving traces. The most enduring contribution lies in its radical doctrine of niyati, an all-encompassing determinism that denied effective moral agency and questioned the usual understanding of karmic causality. Later Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain thinkers repeatedly engaged with such fatalistic views, sometimes echoing a strong sense of fate, sometimes sharply rejecting it, but in any case forced to clarify what they meant by karma, effort, and responsibility. In this way, Ajivika thought functioned as a kind of philosophical mirror, reflecting back to its rivals the implications of their own teachings and pressing them toward more precise formulations.

This dynamic is especially visible in the way Buddhist and Jain traditions refined their doctrines. Buddhist discussions of dependent origination, for example, emphasize conditionality without collapsing into a fixed, unalterable destiny, a stance that becomes more intelligible when read against the background of Ajivika fatalism. Jainism, for its part, gave even greater weight to personal effort, vows, and rigorous ascetic discipline as genuinely transformative, thereby distancing itself from any suggestion that liberation unfolds mechanically, irrespective of conduct. The Ajivika denial of karmic efficacy thus served less as a legacy to be adopted and more as a challenge that sharpened the self-understanding of neighboring paths.

Ajivika influence also appears in the broader ascetic culture that shaped Indian spirituality. Their reputation for extreme austerities—nudity, fasting, and wandering—stood alongside similar practices in other Śramaṇa movements, helping to define a shared ideal of radical renunciation. Even where direct borrowing cannot be demonstrated, the presence of Ajivika ascetics contributed to the range of models available for what a life of renunciation could look like, and this spectrum was later inhabited by various Hindu and Jain orders. In narrative and polemical literature, Ajivikas often appear as emblematic exponents of “wrong view,” especially fatalism, and this literary role kept their characteristic positions alive as a recognized alternative within the ongoing discourse.

Finally, Ajivika speculation about fixed cosmic patterns and a predetermined sequence of rebirths seems to have resonated with later Indian reflections on vast cosmic cycles and numerically ordered ages. While later Hindu cosmology did not simply adopt Ajivika doctrines, it moved within a similar imaginative space of grand, cyclic time and predetermined structures, suggesting at least a shared style of cosmological thinking. Taken together, these strands show that Ajivika thought did not so much survive as a distinct lineage as it did permeate the intellectual atmosphere, shaping how fate, karma, effort, and renunciation were argued over, refined, and re-envisioned by the traditions that endured.