According to the "Brahmajala Sutta", Ajita propounded "Ucchedavada" (the Doctrine of Annihilation after death) and "Tam-Jivam-tam-sariram-vada" (the doctrine of identity of the soul and body), which denied the separate existence of an eternal soul. The extent to which these doctrines, which were evidently inherited by Lokayata, were found contemptible and necessary to be refuted in the idealist, theist and religious literature of the time is a possible evidence of their popularity and, perhaps also, their philosophical sophistication. DD Kosambi, who elsewhere calls Ajita a proto-materialist, notes that he "preached a thoroughgoing materialist doctrine: good deeds and charity gained a man nothing in the end. His body dissolved into the primary elements at death, no matter what he had or had not done. Nothing remained. Good and evil, charity and compassion were all irrelevant to a man's fate."