History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c22.2

c22.2

The fundamental principle of Ājīvika philosophy was Fate, usually called *Niyati*. Buddhist and Jaina sources agree that Gosāla was a rigid determinist, who exalted *Niyati* to the status of the motive factor of the universe and the sole agent of all phenomenal change. This is quite clear in our *locus classicus*, the *Sāmañña-phala Sutta*.¹ Sin and suffering, attributed by other sects to the laws of *karma*, the result of evil committed in previous lives or in the present one, were declared by Gosāla to be without cause or basis,² other, presumably, than the force of destiny. Similarly, the escape from evil, the working off of accumulated evil *karma*, was likewise without cause or basis.³