UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q120: Who established the Ajivika

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q120?

A. Correct — A, Makhali Goshal. **Makhali Goshal** — Makkhali Gosala in the Pali texts, Gosala Mankhaliputta in Jain ones — was a wandering teacher of about the sixth or fifth century BCE who is remembered as the founder of the Ajivika order. He was a contemporary of Mahavira and of the Buddha. Jain tradition, in the Bhagavati Sutra, has Gosala become Mahavira's disciple three years into Mahavira's ascetic life and travel with him for the next six years, before the two parted and became rivals. Buddhist tradition places him among the heterodox teachers whose views the Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya sets out. The idea worth carrying away is **niyati**, destiny: the Ajivikas held that the course of every being is settled in advance, so conduct and effort cannot shorten the passage through births. That is what marks the sect off from the Jainas and the Buddhists, for whom action decides the outcome. The other three names belong to later Buddhist tradition, so the option list sets one shramana teacher of the sixth or fifth century BCE against three later Buddhist figures.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 120 of 147

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Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2024 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

Who established the Ajivika Sampradaya?

(a)Makhali Goshal
(b)Vasubandhu
(c)Upagupta
(d)Dignag

Answer

Why

Correct — A, Makhali Goshal.

Makhali Goshal — Makkhali Gosala in the Pali texts, Gosala Mankhaliputta in Jain ones — was a wandering teacher of about the sixth or fifth century BCE who is remembered as the founder of the Ajivika order. He was a contemporary of Mahavira and of the Buddha.

Jain tradition, in the Bhagavati Sutra, has Gosala become Mahavira's disciple three years into Mahavira's ascetic life and travel with him for the next six years, before the two parted and became rivals.

Buddhist tradition places him among the heterodox teachers whose views the Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya sets out.

The idea worth carrying away is niyati, destiny: the Ajivikas held that the course of every being is settled in advance, so conduct and effort cannot shorten the passage through births. That is what marks the sect off from the Jainas and the Buddhists, for whom action decides the outcome.

The other three names belong to later Buddhist tradition, so the option list sets one shramana teacher of the sixth or fifth century BCE against three later Buddhist figures.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Vasubandhu — Vasubandhu was a Buddhist philosopher of roughly the fourth to fifth century CE, working inside Buddhism rather than founding a rival order, and separated from Gosala by close to a thousand years.
He is the right answer to a question on the Abhidharmakosha and the Yogachara or Vijnanavada school of Mahayana Buddhism, to which his elder half-brother Asanga converted him.
(c)
Upagupta — Upagupta belongs to Buddhist monastic tradition, not to the Ajivikas. His fame rests on a link with Ashoka, and that link is what makes him a tempting pick here, since Ashoka also patronised the Ajivikas.
He is the right answer to a question on the monk of Mathura whom the Ashokavadana presents as Ashoka's spiritual teacher. The shared patron is Ashoka; the founder of the sect is not shared.
(d)
Dignag — Dignaga worked around the fifth to sixth century CE, many centuries after the Ajivika order took shape, and his subject was Buddhist philosophy rather than the founding of a sect.
He is the right answer to a question on the figure who set Buddhist logic and epistemology on a systematic footing, and on the authorship of the Pramanasamuccaya.

Concept

The sixth and fifth centuries BCE in the middle Ganga plain produced a crowd of wandering teachers, the shramanas, who argued outside the Vedic ritual framework about the soul, action and release. Jainism under Mahavira and Buddhism under Gautama grew into lasting traditions; the Ajivikas of Makkhali Gosala came out of the same ferment.

What defined the Ajivikas was niyati. Destiny governs everything, so a being passes through a fixed sequence of existences and reaches release when that sequence is exhausted, whatever it does in the meantime. Jaina and Buddhist teaching pushed the other way, making deliberate action the lever.

The Buddhist Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya preserves the views of the heterodox teachers of the age, Gosala among them, and Jain texts describe his dealings with Mahavira. The sect is therefore known largely through the writings of its opponents.

Ajivika questions sit at the junction of two syllabus blocks: the rise of Jainism and Buddhism, and Mauryan history. The order drew royal support under the Mauryas — the rock-cut caves granted to the Ajivikas in the Barabar and Nagarjuni hills of Bihar are among the earliest surviving examples of that architecture in India.

The option list here mixes one shramana teacher with three names from Buddhist tradition. Placing each name in its century and its school is the work; once Vasubandhu and Dignaga are fixed in the mid-first-millennium CE, the early shramana slot has one occupant.

Key facts

Makkhali Gosala, founder of the Ajivika sect, was a contemporary of Mahavira and the Buddha, placed in about the sixth or fifth century BCE.
The Ajivika doctrine of niyati holds that a being's destiny is fixed in advance, so personal effort cannot alter the course of its rebirths.
The Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya sets out the views of the heterodox teachers of the Buddha's day, including Makkhali Gosala.
The Jain Bhagavati Sutra has Gosala become Mahavira's disciple and travel with him for six years before their estrangement.
Ashoka granted rock-cut caves in the Barabar hills of Bihar to the Ajivikas; his successor Dasharatha made comparable grants in the nearby Nagarjuni hills.
Ashoka's Seventh Pillar Edict names the Ajivikas among the religious communities his officers were to attend to.
Vasubandhu, of about the fourth to fifth century CE, wrote the Abhidharmakosha and turned to the Yogachara school under his elder half-brother Asanga.
Dignaga, of about the fifth to sixth century CE, wrote the Pramanasamuccaya and is credited with systematising Buddhist logic.
Upagupta appears in the Ashokavadana as a monk of Mathura who guided Ashoka.

Placing the four names

Makkhali Gosala — Ajivika founder→sixth or fifth century BCE; niyati, or fixed destiny

Vasubandhu→Buddhist; Yogachara school, Abhidharmakosha

Upagupta→Buddhist monk of Mathura; Ashokavadana tradition

Dignaga→Buddhist logic; Pramanasamuccaya

Ajivika royal patronage→Barabar caves from Ashoka, Nagarjuni caves from Dasharatha

One early shramana teacher set against three later Buddhist figures.

Study next

The heterodox teachers of the Buddha's time as listed in the Samannaphala SuttaAjivika doctrine: niyati, and how it differs from Jaina and Buddhist views of karmaMahavira's life and the Jain canon, including the Bhagavati SutraMauryan rock-cut architecture: the Barabar and Nagarjuni caves and their dedicatory inscriptionsAshoka's edicts and his dealings with the sects of his dayBuddhist philosophical schools and their thinkers: Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka, Asanga and Vasubandhu and Yogachara, Dignaga and Dharmakirti on logic

Common traps

The founder's name is transliterated several ways — Makkhali Gosala, Maskarin Gosaliputra, Gosala Mankhaliputta, Makhali Goshal — so anchor on the element 'Gosala' rather than on a remembered spelling of the whole name.
Reading all four options as Buddhist names. Gosala led a separate shramana order that competed with Buddhism, so a candidate sorting the list only by 'Buddhist or not' has to notice that one name sits outside.
Merging niyati with karma. Ajivika teaching makes destiny fixed regardless of conduct, while Jaina and Buddhist teaching make conduct the thing that changes the outcome.
Letting the Ashoka association pull the answer toward Upagupta. Ashoka figures in Ajivika history through the Barabar cave grants, but that makes him a patron of the sect, not its founder.
Placing Vasubandhu or Dignaga in the age of the Buddha. Both belong to the middle of the first millennium CE, several centuries after the shramana sects of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE were formed.

A name-and-sect fact like this one can be approached from more than one direction, so it is worth preparing from more than one direction.

The version here gives the sect and asks for the founder; the reverse would give the name and ask for the sect or school. A doctrine-first version could offer niyati or fatalism and ask whose teaching it was.

A Mauryan-history version could reach the Ajivikas through the Barabar cave grants rather than through Gosala. Matching formats can set several teachers against texts or doctrines at once, so hold each name with a century, a school and one work or doctrine attached.

Related PYQs

No eligible match among this question's citable set.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Ajivika doctrine of niyati holds that
- (a)release is attained through right action and austerity alone
- (b)the destiny of every being is fixed in advance and cannot be altered by effort
- (c)all phenomena are momentary and possess no enduring substance
- (d)the world is the creation of a supreme personal deity
Answerb — Niyati means destiny. Ajivika teaching held that a being passes through a settled sequence of existences and reaches release when that sequence runs out, so conduct cannot shorten it.
(a) states the position Gosala's rivals took, since Jaina teaching made austerity and right action the means of release. (c) is the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness, belonging to Buddhist philosophy rather than to the Ajivikas.
(d) is a theistic claim about a creator, whereas niyati is a claim about fixed destiny.
practice — not a real PYQ
The rock-cut caves in the Barabar hills of Bihar were granted by Ashoka to which sect?
- (a)The Ajivikas
- (b)The Jainas
- (c)The Pashupatas
- (d)The Bhagavatas
Answera — The dedicatory inscriptions in the Barabar hills record the grant of the caves to the Ajivikas, and Ashoka's successor Dasharatha made comparable grants in the neighbouring Nagarjuni hills.
(b) Early Jaina rock-cut work is associated with sites such as Udayagiri and Khandagiri in Odisha, linked to Kharavela. (c) The Pashupatas are a Shaiva order whose organised history belongs to later centuries.
(d) The Bhagavatas are a Vaishnava tradition, evidenced by the Besnagar pillar of Heliodorus.
practice — not a real PYQ
Consider the following pairs: 1. Vasubandhu — Yogachara school 2. Dignaga — Buddhist logic 3. Makkhali Gosala — Ajivika sect Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched?
- (a)1 and 2 only
- (b)2 and 3 only
- (c)1 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2 and 3
Answerd — All three pairs hold. Vasubandhu wrote the Abhidharmakosha and came to the Yogachara or Vijnanavada school through his elder half-brother Asanga.
Dignaga, author of the Pramanasamuccaya, is credited with putting Buddhist logic and epistemology on a systematic footing. Makkhali Gosala is the teacher named as the founder of the Ajivika sect.
Each of the other options drops one correct pair, so (a), (b) and (c) are each incomplete rather than wrong about what they include.
practice — not a real PYQ
Makkhali Gosala was a contemporary of
- (a)Mahavira and Gautama Buddha
- (b)Kanishka
- (c)Chandragupta II
- (d)Harshavardhana
Answera — Gosala taught in the same region and generation as Mahavira and the Buddha, in about the sixth or fifth century BCE, and Jain texts describe a period during which he and Mahavira moved about together before parting.
(b) Kanishka was a Kushana ruler of the early centuries CE, remembered for a Buddhist council held in his reign. (c) Chandragupta II was a Gupta ruler of about the fourth to fifth century CE.
(d) Harshavardhana ruled from Kanauj in the seventh century CE and was visited by Xuanzang.