Short answers, pulled from the story.
Makkhali Gosala, dated by some sources to around 484 BCE, is generally considered the founder of the Ajivika movement. Some scholars, including the Swedish Indologist Jarl Charpentier, argue the tradition existed in India before his birth.
Ajivika philosophy holds that all events are entirely preordained by cosmic principles, leaving no room for free will. The Ajivikas called this doctrine niyati, meaning predeterminism, and considered the karma doctrine a fallacy.
The Barabar Caves in the Jehanabad district of Bihar are the oldest surviving cave temples of ancient India, carved from granite during the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (273-232 BCE). Ashoka dedicated several of these caves to the Ajivikas in the 12th and 19th years of his reign, approximately 258 BCE and 251 BCE.
Inscriptions from around the Kolar district of southern India dated to 1346 CE represent the last direct evidence of Ajivika presence. The 14th-century philosophical compendium Sarva-Darshana-Sangraha makes no mention of the Ajivikas, marking the end of their recognition as an active school.
No original Ajivika scriptures survive. Everything known about the school comes from texts written by rival groups, primarily Jain and Buddhist sources that competed with and were often hostile to the Ajivikas. Scholars including Paul Dundas have argued these sources likely distorted Ajivika doctrine for polemical purposes.
The Ajivikas held that everything in the world is composed of atoms, which they defined as indivisible, indestructible, and unchanging, yet capable of moving and combining. According to the Tamil text Manimekalai, atoms combine in fixed ratios governed by cosmic rules to form skandha, or molecules, which make up all perceived objects.