Most people think that all Indians are spiritual and worship thousands of gods since time immemorial.
But it is interesting to note there were quite a few rationalists and Atheists and hedonists in India.One such was
無勝髮褐; Wúshèng Fàhè Ajita Kesakambali अजित केशकंबली ఆజిత కేశ కంబళి My favourite Philosopher
"There is no such thing as alms or sacrifice or offering. There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds...A human being is built up of four elements. When he dies the earthly in him returns and relapses to the earth, the fluid to the water, the heat to the fire, the wind to the air, and his faculties pass into space. The four bearers, on the bier as a fifth, take his dead body away; till they reach the burning ground, men utter forth eulogies, but there his bones are bleached, and his offerings end in ashes. It is a doctrine of fools, this talk of gifts. It is an empty lie, mere idle talk, when men say there is profit herein. Fools and wise alike, on the dissolution of the body, are cut off, annihilated, and after death they are not.[3]"
But it is interesting to note there were quite a few rationalists and Atheists and hedonists in India.One such was
無勝髮褐; Wúshèng Fàhè Ajita Kesakambali अजित केशकंबली ఆజిత కేశ కంబళి My favourite Philosopher
"There is no such thing as alms or sacrifice or offering. There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds...A human being is built up of four elements. When he dies the earthly in him returns and relapses to the earth, the fluid to the water, the heat to the fire, the wind to the air, and his faculties pass into space. The four bearers, on the bier as a fifth, take his dead body away; till they reach the burning ground, men utter forth eulogies, but there his bones are bleached, and his offerings end in ashes. It is a doctrine of fools, this talk of gifts. It is an empty lie, mere idle talk, when men say there is profit herein. Fools and wise alike, on the dissolution of the body, are cut off, annihilated, and after death they are not.[3]"
| ||||||||||||||||||
Ajita Kesakambali
The most prominent materialist in ancient India was Ajita Kesakambali. The earliest reference to his school Of thought is in the Buddhas Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship (samannaphala suttat) సామన్నాఫల సూత్తత His ideas are discussed along with those of five other heterodox teachers, including the leader of Jainism, who was a senior contemporary of the Buddha. The discourse focuses more on Ajita's denial of the efficacy of moral discourse than on his materialism. He was totally opposed to those who believed that anything other than matter exists. He refers to them as atthikavädin, or "existentialist". According to him, these existentialists recognized gen-erosity (däna ధాన, prayers (yittha యిత్త), rituals (hutaహుథ, the fruits of good and bad actions (kammaకర్మ), this world (idha lokaఇహ లొక ), the hereafter (para loka పరలొక), the concepts of mother and father (which introduce moral obligations in most societies), the belief in beings of spontaneous birth (i.e., gods, sattä opapätikäసతొపపాతిక), and even the claims that the ascetics and brahmans lived in harmony, were well behaved, and knew this world as well as the next.36 Ajita denied all these. Hence, he was looked upon as a nihilist (natthika- vädin నాస్తిక వాది). In many ways he compares well with the positivists of the modern world, who were reacting to the extremes in religious ideologies and social mores. Of course, Ajita needed an argument to justify his claims. This is where his materialism appears. His materialism was not the result of the study of the physical world and the laws that govern it, as is the case with modern science. Instead, his materialism was based upon his attempt to understand the human in the context of Brahmanical thought, with its extremist spiritualistic and social philosophy.
This human person consists of the four great elements. When he dies, the solidity returns to the body of earth, fluidity to the body of water, caloric to the body of heat, and viscosity to the body of air.37 Ajita is indeed aware that there is something within the human that cannot be explained in terms of the four primary' elements. He seems to have recognized a difference between dead matter and living cells, a fact that some modern scientists, such as Barry Commoner, would admit.38 He needed an explanation that would not upset his materialist thesis, hence his statement, "The faculties return to space" (äkäsat!i indriyäni samkamanti). 39 After this analysis of the human, Ajita returns to his main thesis: Ideas like generosity are simply the conceptualizations of a stupid person (dattu-pafifiatti). He who speaks of their existence, his words are empty, confused and a cry of desperation (tesal!l tucchal!i musä viläpo ye keci atthikavädat!l vadanti).
His first name, Ajita, means the "unconquered," and the second, Kesa- kambali, implies "one who wears a robe of "human" hair./థిస్ ఇస్ సొమె పెఒప్లె ఎక్ష్ప్రెస్సిఒన్ వ్హెరె అస్ కమ్బలి మెఅన్స్ అ బ్లంకెత్ ఇన్ దయ్ తొ దయ్ లంగుఅగె ఇన్ ఈన్దిఅ " The latter indicates that he was a practitioner of austerities. This means that, while being an ascetic, which would also mean that he was not a materialist 18 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND PROBLEMS given to pleasures of sense, Ajita was simply condemning the metaphysical foundations of the Brahmanical ( थिसthis is another western interpretation) moral theory predominant at this time. In fact, views are not very different from those of some of the
given to pleasures of sense, Ajita was simply condemning the metaphysical foundations of the Brahmanical moral theory predominant at this time. In fact, Ajitas views are not very different from those of some of the modern-day philosophers of science who by any standard could be considered good people but who advocate materialism primarily because of the metaphysics involved in ethical discourse. Like the latter, Ajita seems to have been very argumentative, hence his name, "the unconquered."
Pürava Kassapa
Pürapa Kassapa, whose ideas resemble those of Ajita, denied the accruing of merit (punniya) or demerit (päpa) on the basis of good or bad actions, respectively. According to him, taking life, stealing, unchastity, or lying does not bring about demerit.
There would be no accumulation of demerit if one were to reduce all the living beings on this earth to a pile of flesh.
If one were to walk the southern bank of the river Ganges, killing whatever beings one came across, one would not accumulate any demerit. Similarly, if one were to traverse the northern bank, practising charity or praying and promoting others to do the same, one would not pile up any merit. Charity, self-control, restraint, and truthfulness are ineffective. Unlike Ajita, Püraqa provides no reasons or a metaphysical position to justify such condemnation. The only clue to an understanding of his amoralism is his use of the terms merit and demerit It may be noted that the Buddha, who came after Püraoa, made a distinction between merit and demerit on the one hand, and good (kusala) and bad (akusala) on the other. For the sake of the unenlightened, he allowed the idea that merit and demerit can be accumulated. However, the enlightened one, he maintained, is one who has renounced the ideas of merit and demerit although not the concepts of good and bad. Promoting good (kusalassa upasampadü) was part of the ultimate teachings of the Buddha.
It is clear that the Buddha allowed the concepts of merit and demerit only as incentives for the unenlightened person to adopt a moral life.
But the idea of accumulation was not one that could eventually lead to freedomfrom bondage. As the Buddhist text reports, Pürana did not make this distinction. As such, his interest seems to be in totally condemning the Brahmanical and Jaina notions of accumulation of merit for salvific(leading to salvation) purposes and then offering no alternative. Furthermore, it may be noted that Pürapa used the term kiriya instead of kamma to refer to action, and this term was the one employed by the Jainas.
Pakudha Kaccäyana Pakudha Kaccäyana's amoralism is different from both Ajitas and Pürana's. The thrust of his argument is in the direction of denying a "person," again prompted by the Brahmanical conception of self. Yet his denial of self is not comparable to that of Ajita, who reduced the human to the five material substances. Pakudha speaks of seven substances: the four material elements, happiness (sukha), pain (dukkha), and the life principle (jiva).43 His is more an essentialist enterprise that recognizes irreducible elements, both physical and psychic. He is an amoralist because he takes the elements to be permanent, eternal, uncreated, and noncreative. Therefore, "even if one were to behead a person, one is not depriving that person of his life, but is simply creating some space between the seven elements with a life."44 Makkhali Gosäla, the leader of the band of wandering ascetics called Äjivikas, is philosophically the most sophisticated among these amoralists. He presented a carefully worked out theory of biological determinism that, to some extent, influenced the Jainas. Makkhali believed that beings are conditioned by three factors only: fate (niyati), species (sangati), and self-nature (bhäva = svabhäva).45 The initial condition that determines how and why a living being comes to belong to any specific species remains a mystery. It is simply predetermination. Once it appears in a particular species, a species being a harmonious concomitance of a group of characteristics, then it behaves according to the nature of that species. Makkhali's primary interest is in denying the efficacy of the will. Interestingly, he does not reject the concepts of purity (visuddhi) or impurity (satpkilesa). He simply does not want to recognize the activity of the self (atta-kära) or the activity of the human (purisa-kära) in the attainment of purity or impurity. But to what does purity and impurity belong? It seems that they are part and parcel of the mysterious conditions that determine the life of beings; they are part of Hence, beings continue to evolve in the cycle of existences (samsära) and, after some incalculable
period of time, automatically reach the end of their suffering. The idea that virtues and rituals, austerities and the moral life could bring about a change in one's life or bring to fruition the latent karmic tendencies was not acceptable to Makkhali.46 Here again we find a member of the ascetic tradition unwilling to recognize two metaphysical views associated with ethical discussions, namely, the concept of the will and the idea of potentiality. Yet he did not abandon the age-old distinction between the transcendental and the phenomenal, the celestial and the terrestrial, for predermination, species, and self-nature, as well as purity and impurity, are part of the transcendental or the celestial, while the being itself, the content is phenomenal or terrestrial. It is not surprising that the later Indian theistic philosophers utilized Makkhali's system of thinking to introduce the concept of God (iSvara).
Excerpts from
