Ajivika thought presents one of the most uncompromising visions of determinism in the Indian spiritual landscape. At its heart stands the doctrine of *niyati*, an impersonal and all-encompassing fate that governs every event in the cosmos. All actions, experiences, and life-circumstances are regarded as fixed and inevitable, leaving no genuine room for human freedom or self-directed change. What appears as choice or decision is, from this perspective, merely the unfolding of a pre-scripted cosmic order. Human agency, therefore, is treated as a profound illusion rather than a real causal force.

This determinism extends not only to day-to-day events but to the entire trajectory of a being’s existence through saṃsāra. The number of births, the pattern of suffering and joy, and the moment of liberation are all held to be predetermined and unalterable. Liberation does not arise from spiritual effort, moral discipline, or meditative insight, but occurs automatically when the destined cycle of rebirths has run its course. Spiritual practices, ethical striving, and religious observances are thus seen as powerless to alter destiny; they, too, are simply expressions of fate playing itself out.

Such a view has radical implications for moral and spiritual life. Since every action is fixed by *niyati*, conventional notions of merit and demerit, good and evil, lose their transformative significance. Moral responsibility, in the sense of freely choosing and thereby shaping one’s future, is effectively denied. Ajivika teachers portrayed the universe as operating under strict causal necessity, where even karmic processes are subsumed under the sovereignty of fate. What distinguishes this school is the thoroughness with which it carries determinism to its logical extreme, envisioning a cosmos in which everything that happens, including the quest for liberation itself, is nothing other than destiny unfolding.