History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c16.s2.1

c16.s2.1

It would seem that Ājīvikism spread fairly rapidly beyond the region of its origin. The *Mahāvaṃsa* records that, by the time of the Mauryas, it had found its way to Ceylon, where the king Paṇḍukâbhaya, the grandfather of Aśoka’s contemporary Devānaṃpiya Tissa, built a “house of Ājīvikas” (*Ājīvikānaṃ gehaṃ*) at Anurādhapura.¹