Ajivika. Ājīvika. Ājīvika (also written Ajivika or Ajivaka, literally means "living" in Sanskrit) was a system of ancient Indian philosophy and an ascetic movement of the Mahajanapada period in the Indian subcontinent.
Ājīvika was primarily a heterodox Indian (Nāstika) system. The Ājīvikas may simply have been a more loosely-organized group of wandering ascetics (shramanas or sannyasins). One of their prominent leaders was Makkhali Gosala. Ājīvika is thought to be contemporaneous to other early Indian nāstika philosophical schools of thought, such as Cārvāka, Jainism and Buddhism. While the early nāstika systems such as Cārvāka and Ājīvika gradually became extinct or evolved into others, the Jain and Buddhist traditions spun off into what may be described today as separate religions, distinct from Hinduism (which is now restrictively meant to encompass only the six orthodox Āstika philosophical systems). Makkhali Gosala. Makkhali Gosala (Pāli; BHS: Maskarin Gośāla; Jain Prakrit sources: Gosala Mankhaliputta) was an ascetic teacher of ancient India.
He is regarded to born in 484 BCE,[2] and identified as a leader of the Ajivika movement. He was a contemporary of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, and of Mahavira, the last and 24th Tirthankara of Jainism. Sources[edit] Details about Gosala's life are sparse. All of the available information about Gosala and about the Ajivika movement generally comes from Buddhist and Jain sources.