The Forgotten Voices: Ajivikas and Cārvākas in Ancient South Asian Religious Thought

 

HOST: Welcome back. Today, we are stepping far back in time, not to celebrate the well-known heroes of the ancient Indian Subcontinent, but to uncover the voices that were often suppressed, censored, or simply forgotten. We are talking about two fascinating yet largely marginalized traditions: the Ajivikas and the Cārvākas, or Lokāyatas. Joining us is the eminent historian, Maria (a fictional character).

Welcome, Professor.

MARIA: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. These voices—the Ajivikas and the Cārvākas—are absolutely crucial because they reveal that the history of religious thought in the Indian subcontinent was characterized by extraordinary plurality, debate, and contestation. They challenge the common narrative that ancient Indian philosophy was dominated exclusively by spiritual idealism or metaphysical speculation.

 

HOST: That’s a powerful opening. For our audience across India and Pakistan, who are familiar with the major traditions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, where exactly do the Ajivikas and Cārvākas fit into that vibrant historical landscape?

MARIA: We must locate them in the mid-first millennium BCE, a period often called the Second Urbanization. This was a transformative time in northern India, especially in the Gangetic plain. You had the expansion of agriculture, burgeoning trade networks, and the consolidation of large territorial states, or mahājanapadas, like Magadha and Kosala. These structural transformations created opportunities but also widespread discontent.

 

HOST: Discontent with what, specifically?

MARIA: Primarily, with the entrenched ritual authority of the Vedic Brahmins. The traditional Vedic sacrifices, the yajñas, required immense expenditure—vast amounts of cattle, grain, and wealth. The newly emergent merchant and urban classes were less inclined to sustain these practices, which mainly reinforced Brahmanical social hierarchies.

This dynamic environment gave rise to the Śramaṇa movement—wandering ascetics who rejected household life, Vedic ritual, and Brahmanical social structures. Within this ferment, traditions like Buddhism, Jainism, Ajivikism, and Lokāyata materialism developed their distinctive critiques. It was truly an intellectual free-for-all.

 

HOST: So, these heterodox schools were products of socio-economic change?

MARIA: Exactly. And crucially, they flourished in regions like "Greater Magadha," east of the traditional Vedic heartland, where skepticism toward Brahmanical ritualism was particularly pronounced. We know from Buddhist sources, specifically the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, that in the time of the Buddha, there were six prominent heretical teachers, and among them were Makkhali Gosāla of the Ajivikas and Ajita Keśakambalin, often identified with the materialist doctrines later attributed to the Lokāyatas.

 

HOST: Let's start with the Ajivikas. Their name is less familiar to many today. What was their core philosophy, and who was their founder?

MARIA: The Ajivikas, associated with Makkhali Gosāla, represent one of the earliest, and most radical, forms of determinism in Indian philosophy. Their systematic philosophy is centered on one overwhelming idea: niyati, which translates roughly to cosmic destiny or fixed law.

Gosāla, whose historical existence is well-attested in both Buddhist and Jain texts, taught that all events are the inevitable result of impersonal cosmic forces operating according to fixed natural laws. This deterministic worldview extended to everything—individual actions, their consequences, the process of rebirth, and even the ultimate attainment of liberation (mokṣa).

 

HOST: If everything is fixed by niyati, then what room is there for free will or moral choice?

MARIA: That is precisely where the Ajivikas clashed fundamentally with nearly every other tradition. They denied the efficacy of human effort, or puruṣakāra.

The Sāmaññaphala Sutta quotes Gosāla arguing: "There is no cause or condition for the defilement of beings; beings are defiled without cause or condition. There is no self-agency, no other-agency, no human agency". This uncompromising determinism meant they dismissed the concept of karma as a causal principle linking moral action to rebirth. Since destiny governs all, individual actions cannot accelerate or delay your ultimate fate. They taught that all beings are "powerless, without strength or effort; subject to destiny, chance, and nature".

HOST: That sounds incredibly rigid. How did they view the cycle of rebirth, samsāra?

MARIA: Their cosmology was meticulously mechanistic. They maintained that every being must pass through exactly 8,400,000 rebirths over countless eons before achieving final release. This was a precise calculation based on their understanding of cosmic cycles, and it was absolutely fixed. Liberation, in their view, wasn't earned through effort, but achieved only by the sheer exhaustion of this predetermined cosmic cycle. As the Bhagavati Sutra reports Gosāla as teaching: "Just as a ball of thread when thrown unrolls to its full length and then stops, so all beings, after wandering through samsāra for the appointed time, will naturally attain liberation".

 

HOST: Now, here is the great paradox. If human effort is completely futile, why did the Ajivikas embrace rigorous ascetic practices?

MARIA: This is the most intriguing aspect of their philosophy—the paradox of deterministic asceticism. They were known for practices similar to the Jains, such as complete nudity (acelaka), wandering, and fasting.

However, the justification for these austerities was entirely different from the Jains. For Jains, practices were a means to eliminate karma and achieve liberation through effort. For the Ajivikas, the practices were not a means to alter destiny. Instead, they were considered a natural expression of one's predetermined spiritual state. Some individuals were simply destined by niyati to become ascetics, while others were destined for worldly lives. Their practice was a way of aligning with the inevitability of their fate, not an effort to change it.

 

HOST: Despite this radical philosophy, they actually had some influence, didn't they?

MARIA: Significant influence, especially politically. The Ajivikas gained remarkable visibility during the Mauryan period. We have evidence that the Mauryan dynasty favored them. Later Buddhist and Jain traditions say that Bindusara, Ashoka’s father, favored the Ajivikas.

More concretely, Ashoka’s edicts (3rd century BCE) record donations to Ajivika communities, demonstrating their recognized place among heterodox traditions. Crucially, Ashoka’s successor, Emperor Dasaratha, donated elaborate cave complexes—the Barabar Hill caves in Bihar—to Ajivika ascetics. These highly polished, precisely carved caves are a physical testimony to their institutional presence and the considerable royal patronage they received.

 

HOST: So, if they had royal patronage and a coherent system, why did they disappear by the end of the first millennium CE?

MARIA: Their disappearance is a classic case of institutional failure. There were several factors:

Textual Silence: The Ajivikas produced no surviving self-preserved scriptures. What we know survives largely through the accounts of opponents—Buddhist, Jain, and Brahmanical authors. The lack of a robust canon crippled their ability to transmit doctrines systematically across generations.

Rigid Fatalism: If all effort is futile, the incentive to practice asceticism or join the community was arguably weakened. This rigid determinism limited popular appeal and made it difficult to sustain organized followership.

Institutional Weakness: Unlike Buddhism and Jainism, which established extensive monastic organizations with clear hierarchies, the Ajivika tradition remained highly dependent on charismatic teachers and temporary royal support. When the Mauryan royal patronage shifted (especially after Ashoka’s emphasis on Buddhism), the Ajivikas were left vulnerable.

Despite their decline, their philosophy persisted in regional memory, particularly in South India where inscriptions attest to their presence until the early centuries CE, and maybe even up to the 13th century in places like Tamil Nadu. Their ideas continued to fuel philosophical debates about fate and free will long after the sect itself vanished.

 

HOST: That provides a clear picture of the Ajivikas, the ultimate fatalists. Now, let’s turn to the Cārvākas, or Lokāyatas. If the Ajivikas represented one extreme—fatalistic asceticism—the Cārvākas, as you mentioned earlier, occupied the opposite pole.

MARIA: They embodied radical materialism and skepticism. If the Ajivikas offered a mechanism for eventual spiritual release, the Cārvākas rejected the entire spiritual mechanism altogether.

The Cārvākas/Lokāyatas were perhaps the most radical philosophical departure from mainstream Indian thought. They denied the existence of an afterlife, the soul (ātman), karma, rebirth, and any transcendent reality. They argued for a naturalistic understanding of human existence based exclusively on empirical observation and sensory experience.

 

HOST: What is the meaning of "Lokāyata"? It sounds like a philosophy of the common people.

MARIA: It literally means "that which is prevalent in the world" or "worldly philosophy". This suggests a philosophical focus on empirical reality rather than transcendent concerns. While Cārvāka may be a later personification or a name attributed to the materialist tradition, Lokāyata might be the more authentic, broader designation. Interestingly, early texts like the Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra treat Lokāyata as a legitimate branch of learning, not just a heterodox religious position.

 

HOST: Let's discuss their core materialist doctrine. What did they believe reality was made of?

MARIA: Their philosophical foundation was caturmahābhūtavāda—the four-element theory. They reduced all existence to four basic material elements: earth, water, fire, and air.

They argued that all phenomena, including life and consciousness itself, resulted from various combinations and interactions of these material elements. They denied the existence of any non-material principle like a universal spirit or soul.

 

HOST: But if the soul doesn't exist, how did they explain consciousness and thought?

MARIA: This is where their thinking was truly groundbreaking and, frankly, sophisticated. They posited that consciousness was an emergent property arising from complex material organization.

The 14th-century text, the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha, summarizes the Cārvāka position using a famous analogy: Consciousness arises from the four elements, "just as the combination of certain ingredients produces the intoxicating quality in liquor". Like fermentation, the elements combine in the body to produce awareness and thought, a quality not present in any single element alone. This emergentist theory of consciousness anticipates similar ideas we see in modern science.

 

HOST: How did this materialism influence how they acquired knowledge?

MARIA: It led to a radical empiricism. Their epistemological position accepted only direct perception (pratyakṣa) as a valid means of knowledge (pramāṇa).

They put themselves in direct conflict with nearly every other school—Vedic, Buddhist, and Jain—by rejecting inference (anumāna) and scriptural testimony (śabda) as unreliable sources of knowledge. Cārvāka philosophers developed sophisticated critiques of inferential reasoning. They argued that inference is inherently uncertain because it relies on observing correlations (concomitance), which can never be universally complete. If you see smoke and fire together many times, you still can’t be absolutely certain the relationship holds universally.

 

HOST: So, if the Vedas, inference, and the concept of a soul are all rejected, what was the purpose of life according to the Cārvākas?

MARIA: Since there is no afterlife, and the body perishes, the only rational pursuit is happiness and enjoyment in this life. Their ethics were characterized by critics as hedonistic, summarized in the famous maxim:

"While life remains, let a man live happily, Let him feed on ghee though he runs in debt; When once the body becomes ashes, How can it ever return again?"

 

HOST: That sounds like "eat, drink, and be merry." Was it really just crude indulgence?

MARIA: Their opponents certainly framed it that way, leading to polemical caricatures. However, recent scholarship suggests a more nuanced position: prudential hedonism. They emphasized rational pleasure-seeking constrained by practical considerations. They recognized that actions have practical consequences within the span of human existence. Therefore, rational calculation was needed to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

This means their philosophy would naturally support things like social cooperation and honesty—not because of transcendent morals, but because those behaviors contribute to overall human wellbeing in this life. Their hedonism was essentially a powerful critique of religious systems that demanded costly rituals or extreme ascetic renunciation based on illusions about the afterlife.

 

HOST: Their philosophical critique extended to society and religion as well, didn't it?

MARIA: Absolutely. They were phenomenal social critics. They argued that scriptural texts were human compositions designed to serve the material interests of their authors—specifically the priestly class that claimed exclusive authority to interpret them. This critique anticipated modern sociological theories about the role of ideology in maintaining social hierarchies.

The Cārvāka view was that religious beliefs served the material interests of religious professionals, arguing that the Vedas were "the incoherent rhapsodies of knaves".

 

HOST: So, we have the Ajivikas, the fatalistic ascetics, and the Cārvākas, the skeptical materialists. How did they differ from mainstream Buddhism and Jainism?

MARIA: This comparative analysis highlights their uniqueness:

Feature	Vedic/Brahmanical	Buddhism/Jainism	Ajivikas	Cārvākas/Lokāyatas
Causation/Agency	Effort (ritual/ethical) tied to Dharma and Karma.	Effort (puruṣakāra) effective via Karma/Dependent Origination.	Niyati (Absolute Determinism). Human effort is futile.	Natural Causation. Denied karma/rebirth completely.
Metaphysics	Soul (ātman), rebirth, cosmic law (ṛta).	Rebirth, Karma, Mokṣa/Nirvana.	Rebirth, Mokṣa (predetermined).	Rejected all metaphysics. Only the four elements exist.
Epistemology	Scriptural testimony (śabda), perception, inference.	Perception, inference, reliable testimony (middle way).	Knowledge arises spontaneously (when predetermined).	Pratyakṣa (Perception) Only. Rejected inference and texts.
Attitude to Asceticism	Accepted (Upaniṣadic tradition).	Necessary, disciplined effort (Middle Way/Ahiṃsā).	Rigorous, but solely an expression of predetermined fate.	Rejected completely. Harmful to human wellbeing.

The Ajivikas were essentially fatalists who still accepted the concept of the soul passing through cycles. The Cārvākas, on the other hand, affirmed human agency in this life (to seek pleasure) but denied any metaphysical consequences beyond death.

 

HOST: Professor, let's look at why the Cārvākas did not survive as an organized tradition, just like the Ajivikas.

MARIA: The Cārvāka decline followed a different trajectory, but shared the outcome of institutional extinction.

Absence of Institutional Base: The Cārvākas never developed monasteries, temples, or any formal structures for sustaining their ideas, unlike the Buddhists, Jains, or the Brahmanical gurukula system. Their rejection of ritual and ascetic discipline, while consistent with their philosophy, deprived them of the financial means and long-term organizational capacity to maintain a community.

Lack of Patronage: They enjoyed little or no sustained patronage. Rulers and wealthy patrons tended to support traditions that offered legitimizing cosmologies or eternal spiritual benefits. Materialism, which critiques religious authority and focuses on practical governance rather than transcendence, wasn't a good fit for royal legitimization.

Hostile Documentation: Like the Ajivikas, almost everything we know about the Cārvākas comes from antagonistic sources—they served as rhetorical foils for rivals. Their teachings were often caricatured as nihilistic or immoral. The lack of self-authored texts makes reconstructing their original, coherent philosophy challenging.

Ideological Marginalization: As idealist schools like Vedānta and sophisticated logical systems developed in the post-Mauryan and Gupta periods, the Cārvāka’s restrictive epistemology (only perception) started to appear philosophically naive and struggled to engage with the refined logical discourse.

 

HOST: It seems remarkable that despite their institutional demise, both traditions left such deep intellectual scars on their opponents. What is their ultimate legacy? Why should we, in the 21st century, remember these "forgotten voices"?

MARIA: Their legacy is immense, precisely because they forced other traditions to sharpen their arguments. They defined themselves against these radical heterodoxies.

For the Ajivikas, their lasting contribution is the doctrine of uncompromising determinism. Their niyati-vāda challenged the core assumptions of karma and free will. Later Hindu fatalist strands and sophisticated philosophical debates within Jainism and Buddhism continued to grapple with their challenge. Their story proves that Indian thought explored every extreme, including the rejection of human will.

For the Cārvākas/Lokāyatas, their legacy is one of materialism and skepticism.

Empiricism: Their insistence on perception (pratyakṣa) foreshadowed empiricist and rationalist tendencies.

Intellectual Rigour: Their critiques of inference and scriptural authority forced rival philosophers, such as the Buddhist Dignāga, and later Vedāntins like Śaṅkara, to develop more sophisticated theories of knowledge and logic.

Scientific Connection: The materialist emphasis on natural causation and empirical observation influenced the development of early Indian medical and scientific texts, such as the Caraka Saṃhitā.

Rationalist Precursors: They stand as witnesses that skepticism and reason were never absent from the Indian scene. In the modern era, thinkers fighting against superstition and religious orthodoxy often look back to the Cārvākas as pioneers of rationalism.

 

HOST: So, we shouldn't view their disappearance as the elimination of inferior philosophy, but rather as a historical contingency?

MARIA: Precisely. The Ajivikas and Cārvākas demonstrate that philosophical sophistication alone is not enough for long-term survival; you also need effective institutional structures, sustainable economic foundations, and adaptive responses to changing social conditions. The comparative success of Buddhism and Jainism highlights the crucial importance of organizational capabilities.

Ultimately, these vanished voices embody the suppressed counter-histories of Indian thought. They remind us that the subcontinent housed traditions that rejected the afterlife, denied free will, and valorized pleasure. By studying them, we gain a far more complete and nuanced understanding of the immense range of intellectual contestations that defined early Indian civilization. Their existence proves that the Indian mind was never bound by a single orthodoxy.

 

HOST: Professor, this has been an incredibly enlightening discussion, revealing the true depth and plurality of ancient Indian thought. Thank you for sharing the stories of the Ajivikas and Cārvākas.

MARIA: My pleasure. Thank you.