Atheism within Hinduism or Indian Traditional Cultural Atheism

Atheism निरीश्वरवाद, nir-īśvara-vāda, lit. “statement of no Lord”, “doctrine of godlessness”) or disbelief in God or Gods has been a historically propounded viewpoint in many of the prominent streams of Indian philosophy. Atheism and agnosticism have a long history in India and flourished within the so called Śramaṇa  movement since the axial age. Most Indian Philosophies consider atheism to be acceptable

There are six major Vedic (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy—Nyāyá, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, and five major non-vedic(nāstika ) schools are — Jaina, Bauddha, Ājīvika, Ajñana, and Cārvāka. The four most studied nāstika schools, those rejecting the doctrine of Vedas, are Jainism, Buddhism, Cārvāka, and Ājīvika.

Āstika and nāstika are variously defined terms sometimes used to categorise Indian religions. The traditionally dominant definition, followed by vedics, classifies religions and persons as āstika and nāstika according to whether they accept the epistemic authority of the  Vedas, or not. By this definition, Nyāyá, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta are classified as āstika schools, while Cārvāka, Ājīvika, etc are classified as a nāstika school alongwith Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism as nāstika religions since they do not accept the authority of the Vedas.

Another set of definitions—notably distinct from the usage of Hindu philosophy—loosely characterise āstika as “theist” and nāstika as “atheist”. By these definitions, Sāṃkhya, Early Nyāyá-Vaiśeṣika can be considered a nāstika philosophy, though it is traditionally classed among the Vedic āstika schools. From this point of view, Buddhism and Jainism remain nāstika religions.

Buddhists and Jains have disagreed that they are nāstika and have redefined the phrases āstika and nāstika in their own view. Jains assign the term nāstika to one who is ignorant of the meaning of the (their)religious texts, or those who deny the existence of the soul as espoused by them.

N. N. Bhattacharya writes:

The followers of Tantra were often branded as Nāstika by the political proponents of the Vedic tradition. The term Nāstika does not denote an atheist since the Veda presents a godless system with no singular almighty being or multiple almighty beings. It is applied only to those who do not believe in the Vedas. The Sāṃkhyas and Mīmāṃsakas do not believe in God, but they believe in the Vedas and hence they are not Nāstikas. The Buddhists, Jains, and Cārvākas do not believe in the Vedas; hence they are Nāstikas.

But for the sake of not making it complex, lets stick to the mainstream philsophical definition, which is Āstika = Vedic and Nāstika = Non-Vedic.

Now, one thing is to be noted , that atheism here denotes to just rejection in the belief of a supreme, creator, almighty God, other than this a person may have any worldview or metaphysical affliations. We use the word Atheism , here for the lack of a better word.

Some academicians call this “localized atheism” since it was localized to a particular cultural region.

Now as I have already stated in my articles, about the stances on God by various Hindu Schools. I suggest everyone should go and have a look on those articles. Please see – Conception of God, and What is the Hindu identity?Is Hinduism a ‘religion’, just like any other normal conventional religion?

As it is already been stated, God is not the central issue of Hinduism. Markandey Katju, former Chairman of the Press Council of India and former judge of the Supreme Court of India, writes

“People think that Sanskrit is a language of chanting mantras ..in temples or in religious ceremonies. However, that is only 5% of Sanskrit literature. 95% of Sanskrit literature has nothing to do with religion. It deals with a whole range of subjects like philosophy, law, science (including mathematics, medicine and astronomy) grammar, phonetics and literature……Sanskrit was the language of people with an enquiring mind, who enquired about everything, and therefore there is a whole range of subjects which have been discussed in Sanskrit.

Katju further writes on Indian Philosophy.

There are six classical systems of Indian philosophy, Nyaya, Vaisheshik, Sankya, Yoga, Purva Mimansa and Uttar Mimansa, and three non-classical systems, Buddhism, Jainism and Charvak. Out of these nine systems eight of them are atheistic as there is no place for God in them.  Only the ninth one, that is Uttar Mimansa, which is also called Vedanta, has a place for God in it.  One of the classical systems is called the Nyaya system.  The Nyaya system says that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience, which is precisely the scientific approach.  Vaisheshik was the physics of ancient times (the atomic or parmanu theory).  Physics is part of science, and hence at one time Vaisheshik was part of Nyaya philosophy.  However, since physics is the most fundamental of all sciences  subsequently Vaisheshik was separated from Nyaya and made into a separate philosophy altogether.

It was the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy which provided the scientific background and gave great encouragement to our scientists to propound their scientific theories.   People in our country were not persecuted for being scientists, unlike in Europe where scientists were burnt on the stake like Bruno for propounding their scientific theories.  Galileo was almost burnt on the stake, and he narrowly escaped by recanting his views.  As recent as in 1925 in America a teacher John Scopes was criminally prosecuted in the famous (or infamous) monkey trial for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution because it was against the Bible.  This never happened in  our country because behind science was a scientific philosophy, that is the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy, which says that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience.”

Katju may have got some minor details inaccurate in the above statement, but overall he’s speaking facts.

The Indian Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen, in an interview with Pranab Bardhan for the California Magazine published in the July–August 2006 edition by the University of California, Berkeley states:

In some ways people had got used to the idea that India was spiritual and religion-oriented. That gave a leg up to the religious interpretation of India, despite the fact that Sanskrit had a larger atheistic literature than what exists in any other classical language. Madhava  Acharya(Vidyaranya), the remarkable 14th century philosopher, wrote this rather great book called Sarvadarshansamgraha, which discussed all the religious schools of thought within the Indian structure. The first chapter is “Atheism” – a very strong presentation of the argument in favor of atheism and materialism.

The vast chunk of what we call as Hindu Literature deals with issues related to various fields of academics, science, humanities and different aspects of life. The Hindu literature includes works on various topics, such as Medicine, Surgery, Logic, Philology, Linguistics, Astronomy, Physics, Alchemy,Chemistry, Mettallurgy, Botany, Agriculture, Mathemetics, Architecture, Grammar, Musicology, Performing Arts, Economics, City-Building, Geography, Statescraft, Jewel-testing, Ship-building, Poetics, Lexicography, drammaturgy, Hippology, Sexology,  epistemology, etc., which have nothing neccessarily to do with the metaphysics of Dharma or spirituality or religion or Gods.

Now, this is not to show that everything about Hindu is cent percent scientifically accurate or Hinduism is all about science. That is indeed far from truth, as Hindu Literature/culture has its fair share of scientific inaccuries, regressiveness as well, but those portions are basically in what we call as religious literature, whose focal point is related to Gods and Goddesses dealing with theology, mythological cosmography, etc.

Historical development

The ṚgVeda , the oldest of the Vedas, deals with significant skepticism around the fundamental question of a creator God and the creation of the universe. It does not, at many instances, categorically accept the existence of a creator God. Nāsadīya Sūkta (Creation Hymn) in the tenth Maṇḍala of the Ṛg Veda states:

Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. so who knows truly whence it has arisen?  
~ 10.129.6

Whence all creation had its origin,
the the first origin of this creation, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
the one, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows — or maybe even he does not know 
~ 10.129.7

This Sūkta talks about the Vedic Cosmogony. The hymn has attracted a large body of literature of commentaries both in Indian darśanas and in Western philology and is one of the most widely received portion of ṚgVeda. It is considered as one of the earliest accounts of skeptical inquiry and agnosticism. Astronomer Carl Sagan quoted it in discussing India’s “tradition of skeptical questioning and unselfconscious humility before the great cosmic mysteries. For the complete Sūkta:  Nāsadīya Sūkta

Hindu philosophical systems were generally non-theistic.

The existential problem discerned by the sages was DUḤKHA – the causes and solution to duḥkha and the achievement of sukha (happiness) here and now – is achievable without the need for, or intervention of gods. The Gods are superfluous to need.

Even the great Vedic yajñas were based on the efficacy of the ritual itself and not on the goodwill or grace of the gods invoked — a fact which some might find quite surprising – complex non-theistic rituals. The mantras, when recited correctly and the ritual acts when carried out meticulously, compelled the results.

The Vaiśeṣika school founded by Kaṇāda explains the creation and existence of the universe by proposing an atomistic theory, applying logic and realism, and is one of the earliest known systematic realist ontology in human history. Kaṇāda and early Vaiśeṣika scholars focused on the evolution of the universe by law. However, this was not unusual for his times since several major Hindu philosophies such as Sāṃkhya, Nyāyá, Mīmāṃsā along with early versions of Yoga and Vedānta, as well as non-Vedic schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, were similarly non-theistic. Kaṇāda was among the sages of ancient India who believed in man’s potential to understand existence and reach Mokṣa on his own and by knowledge alone, without God.

Mīmāṃsā was a realistic, pluralistic school of philosophy which was concerned with the exegesis of the Vedas. Mimamsa philosophers believed that the Vedas were sacred, authorless (apauruṣeyatva) and infallible, and that it was essential to preserve the sanctity of the Vedic ritual to maintain dharma (cosmic order). They accepted Vedas as svataḥ pramāṇa (“self-evident means of knowledge”). The Mīmāṃsā school asserts that since the Vedas are composed of words (śabda) and the words are composed of phonemes, the phonemes being eternal, the Vedas are also eternal, hence authorless. As a consequence of the belief in sanctity of the ritual, Mimamsas rejected the notion of God in any form. Mīmāṃsā theorists concluded that the evidence allegedly proving the existence of God was insufficient. They argue that there was no need to postulate a maker for the world, just as there was no need for an author to compose the Vedas or a God to validate the rituals. Mīmāṃsā argues that the Gods named in the Vedas have no existence apart from the mantras that speak their names. Mīmāṃsakas not only did not accept God but said that human action itself was enough to create the necessary circumstances for the enjoyment of its fruits as I stated above ‘Godless rituals’.

The earliest surviving Sāṃkhya text is completely silent on the notion of God. However, the later commentaries on it and other Sāṃkhya literature, explicitly attempt to disprove God’s existence through reasoned argument. Sāṃkhya is an enumerationist school of thought, which accepts the binary of matter and consciousness as eternal and non created, and their interaction as the origin. Sāṃkhya theorists argue that an unchanging God cannot be the source of an ever-changing world and that God was only a necessary metaphysical assumption demanded by circumstances.

Advaita philosophy espouses idealist monism and Pantheism, in which the entire physical world is ultimately nothing but an illusion, non-existent, all dualities are an illusion, and hence the creator supreme diety is also ultimately non existent. The school of Spinoza is the most akin to Advaita.

Yoga although accepted a personal god, but not as some omnipotent creator who sits on the 7th sky, just as a transformative catalyst or guide for the adherent for his spiritual emancipation.

These philosophies explain morality and the nature of existence through the karma and saṃsāra doctrines, a common trait in all Indian traditions, even in the theistic ones.

Ājīvikas believed in a naturalistic atomic theory and held that the consequence of natural laws led to a deterministic universe.  Cārvākas were pure materialists, nihilists and hedonists. Jainas espoused eternalism and Non-Creationism, denying any Supreme Creator God.. Bauddhas considered questions regarding creation and Supreme God to be irrelavent, while also denying most creationist theories and the God.

The religion Jainism & Buddhism , and Mīmāṃsā indeed have elements of polytheism in them, but their philosophy can be called as atheistic in the context mentioned above.

Prominent Hindu Atheists.

• Vinayak Damodar “Veer” Savarkar, the president of Hindu Mahasabha, promoted the principles of Hindutva, the intellectual fountainhead of Modern Hindu Nationalism, and a self-described atheist with Hindu as a cultural and political identity. In his writings I have found one of the most harshest criticisms of Hindu customs, traditions, beliefs, etc. ever, and strongest voices in support for science, rationalism, etc.
• Brahmanand Swami Sivayogi, an atheist and rationalist who founded the Ananda Mahasabha.
• Shreela Flather, Baroness Flather of Windsor and Maidenhead (b. 1934), the first Hindu woman in British politics. She has described herself as a “Hindu atheist”. Broadly, she is an atheist with affinity to secular aspects of Hindu culture such as dress and diet.
• Nisargadatta Maharaj, a prominent hindu Spiritual Guru from 19th Century, denied the creationist deity that people called as God, questioned creation, and stated God is only an idea in people’s mind. He espoused Pantheism. Another prominent Pantheist was Osho, who openly proclaimed that God is the biggest lie ever told to humankind.
• Raj Patel, a noted academic, journalist, activist and writer also identified as an atheist Hindu in an interview to The New York Times.
• Markandey Katju, a noted Indian Jurist identifies as Hindu Atheist. He often uses Hindu symbolisms in his public statements, while also critiquing the religious aspects.

In all of my readings untill now, the most vehement, veracious crticism for Hinduism, Hindu customs & traditions, I have found has come from people like Savarkar, Osho, Vivekananda, etc.

The aforementioned atheistic or rationalistic school of thoughts suffered immensely due to the rise of Bhakti Movement and advent of Islam, and also because of the denominational intellectual rivalry that existed amongst them. However these schools, although in a diminishing state, still survived through the medievel era, as we find their mentions in medievel texts like “Sarva-darshana-samgraha” and even in the Islamic travellogues of Ibn Batuta, Mohsin Fani, etc. and also in Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Fazl. The shaddarshana acharyas are also said to have visited the Kumbh Mela in 17th century, suggesting they had their active lineages surviving back then.

But contemporarily the rationalist heritage of India has declined to much obscurity, with their concepts being absorbed, incorporated and appropriated by the Bhakti and Sufi cults. Many of the key personalities of atheistic traditions have been absorbed and deified in theological traditions. The surviving school of thoughts such as Nyaya, Jaina, Advaita, etc. have metamorphosed greatly, leaving behind the once held atheism and logic.

This site is an attempt to bring awareness about those aspects of Indian History which are largely forgotten or enveloped by Generalizations and stereotypes caused by superficial understanding of this civilization, and to objectively present them as they are, without any justifications or sugarcoatings.

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