He was contemporaneous with Mahavira, Makkhali Gosala, Ajita Kesakambali and the Buddha, and was a proponent of the ajñana school of thought.
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.
He crafted a methodical five-fold response, as a means to abstain from adopting positions on any philosophical viewpoint.
[9] In the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1), Sanjaya's views are deemed to be amaravikkhepavada, "endless equivocation" or "a theory of eel-wrigglers.