He was contemporaneous with Mahavira, Makkhali Gosala, Ajita Kesakambali and the Buddha, and was a proponent of the ajñana school of thought.
[4] Sanjaya Parabajjaka also had a follower named Suppiya, and so was Tattvalabdha, a minister at the court of King Ajatashatru.
Hecker (1994) contextualizes Sanjaya's thought as "a kind of dialectical existentialism" in juxtaposition to the popular materialist views of the day (for instance, typified by the ascetic teacher Ajita Kesakambalī.
)[5] Chakravarty (2021) expounds that Sanjaya navigated clashes of ideas and disputes by steadfastly withholding judgments, especially concerning metaphysical and ethical debates.
[9] In the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1), Sanjaya's views are deemed to be amaravikkhepavada, "endless equivocation" or "a theory of eel-wrigglers.