The Ajivikas and Makkhali Gosala

Earliest record
3rd century BCEAshoka's inscriptions in the Barabar Hill caves give caves to the Ajivikas in the twelfth year of his consecration; his successor Dasaratha dedicated three more at Nagarjuni. The word Ajivikehi was later chiselled out of most of them.

The order outlived its 'vanished' reputation: in 1951 Basham showed that South Indian inscriptions levy an Ajivika tax as late as 1346, entries Hultzsch and Hoernle had taken to mean Jains.

A. L. Basham, History and Doctrines of the Ājīvikas (Luzac, 1951), pp. 186-190, on the Acuvi-kacu and related levies in Tamil and Kannada inscriptions to 1346 and Hultzsch's and Hoernle's reading of them as Jain

An Indian ascetic order of the Buddha's time, led by Makkhali Gosala, that taught all is fixed by fate.

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