Atheism in Indian Philosophy

Historically speaking, atheism was used in various senses and in all sorts of contexts. The early Christians were persecuted by the Romans as atheists not because they did not believe in God but because they refused loyalty to the then existing state religion.Coben writes (in Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences vol. 2, pg 293): Anaxagoras was accused of atheism, because he thought of the sun as a material body. Protagoras was banished from Athens because of his assertion that about the existence of Gods he did not know--the subject was difficult and life was short. Atheism was one of the charges that led to the condemnation of Socrates. Aristotle was similarly accused.

The case of the Epicureans was a peculiar one. It has been shown that as a matter of fact they really believed in the existence of gods and did so for the same reason that they believed in the existence of other material objects. Why were they then denounced as stark atheists? Farrington answers (Head and Hand in Ancient Greece, pg 96): When ancient writers, as for instance Cicero and Plutarch, charge Epicurus and his followers of atheism, it was not because they were unaquainted with the theology of Epicurus, but because the Epicurean religion could not perform what was for them an essential function of religion. Gods who took no heed whatever of bad men were useless to police the state. It seems, further, that Epicureanism was an active propagandist creed, and that the direct object of its attack was that aspect of religion which the state thought wise to encourage.

Even in modern Europe, the word atheism is somewhat indiscriminately used, sparing not even the pious believers in God. Descarte for example offered the most intricate metaphysical proofs for the existence of God. As a mark of his personal piety he made a pilgrimage of gratitude to the shrine of the Virgin of Loretto after discovering co-ordinate geometry. Yet Samuel Barker, the then bishop of Oxford, declared Descartes to be 'one of the three most dangerous atheists of the age' (the other two were Hobbes and Gassendi). It is well known how the 'God-intoxicated' Spinoza was excommunicated because of his atheism. It was for atheism again that Fichte had to lose his job at the University of Jenna although he had already argued his best in defence of 'Revelation' earlier.

More examples may be given but they are not necessary. It can readily be seen that in European history, the charge of atheism was indiscriminately used in sectarian rivalry as a weapon to beat down the opponent. The result is such a confusion that the term atheism is almost denuded of any significance.

Fortunately, such a confusion did not exist in the field of Indian philosophy. Not that we do not come across sectarian rivalry--even intense sectarian animosity--among the Indian philosophers. But the Indian thinkers had other ways of expressing their rivalry and animosity i.e. without confusing it with the question of any belief or disbelief in God.

Thus, for instance, the followers of Vedic orthodoxy called themselves astikas and this as contrasted with their opponents who were denounced as nastikas. But both these words only had strict bearing only on acceptance of the authority of the Vedas; an astika was one who accepted the authority of the Vedas and a nastika was one who rejected it.Belief or disbelief in God was a separate question altogether.

Thus the Mimansa philosophy is usually cited as a stock example of how a total rejection of God could be fully reconciled with the astika standpoint par excellence i.e. the standpoint of Vedic orthodoxy in its most rigid sense. (For some beautiful polemic against the existence of God, the reader may read 'Sloka Vartika' by Kumarila Bhatta (circa 7th century AD)).

By contrast, the Saivas and the Pasupatas represented well known popular theistic sects though without major philosophical significance. Still, evidently because of their indifference to or incomplete reverence for the Vedic injuctions, some of the the Indian law givers (who incidentially were also the most ruthless champion of the Vedic orthodoxy) declared that even a mere touch of the Saivas or the Pasupatas was a sin--a pollution which could only be removed only be ceremonial bathing. (See vol. 2 of P.V. Kane's History of Dharmasastras for more on this).

This shows how far sectarian animosity could go; but it also shows how sectarial animosity was not permitted to be mixed up with the question of belief or disbelief in God. There was thus among the Indian thinkers no dearth of sectarian rivalry. In this, however, they did not indiscriminately use the charge of atheism to beat down the opponent. On the contrary, theism and atheism represented for them extremely clear-cut philosophical positions. The Indian word for the former is isvara-vada or the doctrine of God. It is the definite assumption of an omniscient and omnipotent creator and moral governor of the world. The Indian word for atheism is nirisvara-vada i.e. a categorical rejection of such an assumption.This being so, the use of the words theism and atheism in any other sense will not be considered by the Indian philosophers themselves, nor will it be allowed from their point of view to read in the word God any meaning other than the one in which they used it.

Thus, in short, in the Indian context, God is to be understood in the strict sense of the creator and moral governor of the world and theism in the sense of accepting this assertion. An example may be given here of how intensely sarcastic some of the Indian philosophers were about God. The theists glorified Him with all sorts of high flown adjectives--omnipotent, omniscient, eternal and so on. All these said a Jain philosopher of great repute (Gunaratna in his Tarkarahasyadipika) was futile--as futile, in fact, as offering a young damsel to a person sexually impotent: such high sounding adjectives could have no meaning to the non-existing God than the charm of a young damsel to the sexually crippled. Detailed examination of the various Indian philosophies would not be possible without very lengthy expositions, but the following assertion may be made:Of all the major Indian philosophies, only the Vedanta (with some reservation) and specifically the later version of Nyaya-Vaisesika were theistic.

By contrast Budhism,Jainism, Mimansa, Sankhya, Lokayata/Charvaka and Nyaya-Vaisesika in its original form were philosophies of committed atheism. Thus the stupendous importance of atheism in Indian wisdom can only be questioned by disallowing the largest majority of the significant Indian philosophers representing it.

The clarification about the Vedanta may be given here in brief: the fact is that although the other sub-sects of the Vedanta admitted God in the strictly Indian sense i.e. as the creator and moral governor of the world, the Advaita Vedanta refused to do so. In this philosophy the world itself is looked at as being illusory and hence there can be no question of any real creation. This was the famous Advaitic view of ajata-vada--the doctrine that the world never came into being. Hence there was no scope for admitting any actual creator and moral governor of such a non-existing world.Theologically, the standpoint Advaita Vedanta represents can perhaps be characterised as super-theism. The concept of God has all the validity imputed to it by the devout theists, though strictly from the emperical point of view of point of view of our practical existence (vyahvarika satya). Only from the transcendental point of view of the ultimate reality (parmarthika satya), the Advaita philosophy conceived something like a super-God--the non-dual Brahman--and attributed to it exclusive reality.