between materialism and immaterialism
TRANSCRIPT
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
Between Materialism and Immaterialism: Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
(A comparative perspective)1
Victoria Lysenko
Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences
The molecule was composed of atoms, and the atom was
nowhere large enough even to be spoken of as extraordin-
ary small. It was so small, such a tiny, early, transitional
mass, a coagulation of the unsubstantial, of the non-yet-
substantial and yet substance-like, of energy, that it was
scarcely possible to think of it as material, but rather as
mean and borderline between material and immaterial.
Thomas Manni
Philosophical atomism is a well known doctrine usually closely associated with a realistic
and mechanistic outlook representing the material universe as composed of indivisible minute
corpuscles. But if we try to identify the nature of these atoms in philosophical terms, we find
ourselves entrapped into a net of problems and contradictions. Are these atoms indivisible
because of their hardness and solidity (from the Greek atomos “uncuttable”, “indivisible”),
because of their extreme smallness, or because of their status of transcendental metaphysical
entities? Are they solid material bodies having whatever small spatial extension, or non-
extensional points? Suppose, they were bodies, but bodies have sides - front, back etc. which
may be identified as their parts. Even a mere possibility of these “parts’ would run counter the
idea of the partlessness and indivisibility of atoms. If they were points without extension they
could not constitute material things, as an addition of non-extensive points would never overpass
a point. This kind of anti-atomistic arguments occurring in Greek, Indian or Arab atomism, may
be roughly summarized in a single statement: The atom is torn, as it were, between the necessity
to be a material body (since the minutest of material bodies must be itself a material body) – and
the impossibility to be so (since such a body even being physically indivisible is subjected to
mental division).
1 Published in: Materialism and Immaterialism in India and Europe. Ed. Partha Ghose. PHISPC 12(5), Centre for Studies in Civilizations, Delhi, 2010, p.253-268.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
Nevertheless, in spite of all its logical complexities and problematical character, the
idea of atoms as constitutive ultimate blocks (or “bricks”) of the universe has become one of the
first and the most efficient explanatory models in the history of theoretical thought. How was it
possible that long before the experimental discovery of the atom, long before the appearance of
quantum physics with its theories and sophisticated equipment, there arose in two great
civilizations of Antiquity -- Greece and India -- the idea of ultimate constitutive parts of things?
If we suppose that it was a result of the observation of some general modes of human activity
like constructing something from parts, for example a house or an altar from bricks, or like
destruction of things down to some further indivisible parts, then why did this idea not arise in
other civilizations, like Egypt, or Mesopotamia, or China with their highly sophisticated
construction techniques? That leads us to assume that the presuppositions of this idea are rather
of mental than of a purely practical order.
Does the more or less parallel birth of atomism in Greece and in India result from
influence or of borrowingii? Till now we do not dispose of any facts proving that Indian thinkers
have imported this idea from the Greek atomists or vice versa. Any exchange of ideas is not only
a matter of contacts between two civilizations (of course, there were some iii), but rather a matter
of culturally determined availability and openness of one culture towards the ideas coming from
outside. As the Indian tradition was rather self-centered and resisted any external influence, it
seems hardly possible that Indian atomism had the Greek originsiv.
In this paper, I try to outline some theoretical or intellectual presuppositions of the
atomistic doctrine, leaving aside the questions either of possible borrowing or of chronological
priority of one or the other atomistic traditionv. The long-term goal of this paper is to find
support for the idea that Indian and Greek forms of atomism share a common root in a basic
language type. As preliminary support this paper introduces a methodology of comparative
analysis and a description of the Greek and Indian philosophies of atomism in terms of their
most important common features and differences.
Thus, excluding a factor of influence of one tradition over the other, we are left with, at
least, two series of data. First, their common Indo-European substrate - a basic alphabetic
principle characteristic of the Indo-European language familyvi, and some similar structural
generating schematizations proper to their respective languages – the Sanskrit and the Greek :
from letters (phonemes) to syllables, from syllables to parts of the word (prefixes, radicals,
suffixes, endings), from words to phrases. Greeks directly referred to letters as an image of
atomsvii. Indian tradition, being mainly oral, presented similarly clear parallels between atoms
and phonemesviii. It is quite symptomatic that the Sanskrit terms for “atoms” – aṇu and
paramāṇu - were widely used in the ancient Indian phonetic tradition (śīkṣā)ix. There is a rather
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
mysterious statement of Bhartṛhari in his Vākyapadīya (I.110): “It has been accepted by different
(thinkers) that wind, atoms, cognition, become śabda (word, sound, language)”. The view that
the atoms become ‘śabda’ is attributed by different scholars to the traditional Jaina view on
speech and languagex. Some Indian and Western scholars believe that the idea of atomic
structure of sound/word’s (śabda) was part of the world outlook of many Indian thinkers,
Buddhists and Jainas includedxi. If we take in account the generally accepted view that the Jaina
atomism had been the most ancient among other atomistic traditions of India, a connection
i Thomas Mann. The Magic Mountain, in Collected Work, Alfred A. Knopf, 1927, vol. 1, p. 359.
ii The scholars who believed in borrowing disagree as to who has borrowed from whom. According to R. Garbe,
Indian atomism, as the more ancient one, influenced Greek atomism (see R.Garbe. The Philosophy of Ancient India.
Chicago, 1897, p.38), while A. Keith held to the idea of a Greek influence over Indian atomism (see: A.Keith.
Indian Logic and Atomism. An Exposition of the Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika System. Oxford, 1921, p. 18).iii See for example:N.M. Chapekar. Ancient India and Greece: A Study of their Cultural contacts. Delhi, 1977; H.
Rawlinson. Intercourse between India and the Western World. From the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome . New
York, 1971; iv About the lack of xenological interest in India see: Wilhelm Halbfass. India and Europe. An Essay of
Understanding. Chapter 11.Traditional Indian Xenology. SUNY Press, 1988, p. 172-196.v Some new data and hypothesis are extensively discussed in: McEvilley’s Shape of Ancient thought. Comparative
Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. New York: Allworth Press, 2002.
vi Joseph Needham was one of the first to connect the emergence of atomism with the alphabetic principle on which
the great majority of written languages rests. He refers to the parallel between the limitless variety of words
formable from the relatively few letters of the alphabet, and to the idea that a very small number of ―elementary
particles could, in a multitude of combinations, engender the limitless variety of material bodies (Joseph Needham.
Science and Civilization in China. Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part. 1. Cambridge University
Press, 1962, p.26(b). The idea of the deep structural influence of the alphabetic system on the Greek philosophy of
nature and mathematics was developed by the Russian sinologist Artem I. Kobzev. See: Ucheniye o symvolah i
chislah v kitayskoy klassicheskoy filosofii (Teaching about Symbols and Numbers in Traditional Chinese
Philosophy). Moscow: Oriental Literature, 1994.
vii Aristotle illustrates three modes of difference between physical objects in terms of
modifications in the
shape, arrangement, and position of the atoms with the examples of the letters A and N, AN and NA, and Ј and H. viii For example, Vasubandhu in his Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Part III.Lokanirdeṣa, kar. 85) states: “Atom, phoneme
and moment are the limit [of division] of sensory matter (rūpa), name and time”.
ix In the Riktantra (41), aṇu is equivalent to the half of mātrā and paramāṇu to the interval between two varṇas
(phonemes). In the Vājasaneyi-prātiśākhya (1.59-61), aṇu is 1/4 of mātrā, while paramāṇu – 1/8 of mātrā. In the
Sabhuśīkṣā, aṇu is defined as imperceptible by senses, in the Lomaṣiśikṣā, aṇu is compared with the mote in the
sunbean. In A Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar ( āāā KaṣinathVasudevbhyankar Oriental Institute,
Baroda, 1961), aṇu is defined as
ethe mātrā.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
between ‘phonetic’ and philosophical forms of atomism may become a possibility worth of a
more profound research.
There is another, this time rather indirect, proof of this “linguistic” hypothesis through a
negative example. One of the first Vaiśeṣika texts (Candramati’s Daśapadārthaśāstra)
containing the idea of atoms was translated into the Chinese language as early as the 5th century
ADxii, but this idea did not produce any impact on the Chinese thoughtxiii, because there were no
linguistic and hence no intellectual means to assimilate and develop itxiv.
Though some common linguistic factors – morphology of words, syntactical structure of
the sentence -- may serve as a model for constructing the indefinite number of objects of
different complexity from some simple constitutive elements, they prove to be a necessary but
not an indispensable condition. Otherwise, why there are no traces of atomism in other Indo-
European civilizations, for instance in Ancient Persia?
But what then constitutes a necessary and indispensable condition? Here, we have to
deal with a second series of data - a certain structure of theoretical thinking provided by the
means of the above-mentioned Indo-European linguistic patternsxv. We think theoretically when
we are trying to understand what things are through their internal, intrinsic nature, through their
essence and not appearance. The atoms are something that we could not see the way we observe
ordinary things, thus their existence must be proved indirectly, for example, through an analogy
x Jan Houben in his paper Bhatṛhari’s Familiarity with Jainism, refers to Sūryanārāyanna Śukla, Gaurinath Śāstri
and others (Annals BORI LXXXV 1994, p. 8-10).xi See, for example, J. Bronkhorst. Studies on Bhartṛihari 5. Bhartṛihari and Vaiṣeśika. - Asiatische Studien/ Études
Asiatiques, 47.1, p. 86.
xii In language,paramāṇu tas ’’aṇu as ‘’. See
Ui, Hakuju. Vaiṣeśika Philosophy according to the Daśapadārthaśāstra. Chinese text, English translation and
notes. London, 1917. xiii I am not talking here about the Buddhist Abhidharmic and later Yogācāra texts also translated into Chinese
beginning from the 3-rd century onwards. Some of them presented the Buddhist atomistic doctrine, but it was not
elaborated by the Chinese thinkers in their own doctrines. xiv Explaining why in China atomism never really took root Joseph Needham observes, that the Chinese written
character is an organic whole, a Gestalt, and minds accustomed to an ideographic language would perhaps hardly
have been so open to the idea of an atomic constitution of matter. As Needham points out, however, the Chinese
recognized the function of the atomic principle in numerous contexts, for example the reduction of written
characters to radicals, the composition of melodies from the notes of the pentatonic scale, and the representation of
Nature through the permutations and combinations of the broken and unbroken lines in the hexagrams of their
ancient work of divination the I Ching (Op. cit. ). The fact that atomism developed in Greece but not in China is also
discussed by Artem Kobzev (op. cit., p. 347-348 et al.) and Jean-Paul Reding in the Chapter "Words for Atoms—
Atoms for Words" (J.P Reding. Comparative Essays in Early Greek and Chinese Rational Thinking, Ashgate,
2004).
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
with observable facts (the most widespread is the analogy with dust motes in a sunbeam), or
through logical inference (a necessity to postulate a terminal point for the process of dividing
things into their parts). As far as the theoretical origins of atomism are concerned, it is
indispensable that certain philosophical problematizations are articulated and - what is even
more important - receive different interpretations and solutions. These are problems of whole
and parts, cause and effect, essence and appearance, one and many, continuity and discontinuity.
Philosophical mind is always trying to create a coherent and logically justified world
view, a sort of optical device through which the real world would be represented as an integrated
whole, a common horizon of meaning. Philosophical doctrines, in as much as they try to justify
such a holistic world outlook may be regarded as models of wholeness (integrity, continuity,
completeness, consistency, continuity, and entirety). I believe that the presence and development
of, at least, two models of wholeness constitute an important theoretical precondition of
atomism.
The first type refers to a single eternal principle possessing absolute unity and plenitude
of being, deprived of any real parts, qualitative distinctions, change and modification. This
pursuit of unity may be regarded as a presupposition for all rational science. As Andrew G.M.
van Melsen observes, “Without fundamental unity, no universal laws are possible, without
fundamental immutability, no laws covering past, present and future can be valid”xvi. If such kind
of model is challenged by the necessity to justify multitude and change, it reduced them to
illusion, ignorance, opinion. The most representative examples of this radical ‘monistic’ model in
India seems to be the Upaniṣadic idea of the eternal Brahman/Ātman (as a single reality
(developed in the Advaita-Vedānta of Shankara), in Greece - the doctrine of Eleates.
The diametrically opposite type of models represents a kind of additive whole, a
mechanical sum of homogeneous or heterogeneous parts. In this model, which I call ‘atomistic’,
discontinuity and multitude are not only the original but also the only real state of things, while
oneness, continuity and wholeness are regarded as constructed, artificial and, in the final
analysis, illusory. If the first model reduces discontinuity to continuity, change to permanence,
and multitude to a single principle, the second lays stress on discontinuity, change and multitude.
In India it is a theory of dharmas of the Buddhists Abhidharmic authors, in Greece - Leucippus-
Democritus’ atomistic doctrinexvii.
xv I can refer here to the fact that in the Sanskrit as well as in the Ancient Greek distinctions were made between
substance (noun, substantive), attributes (adjective), motion (verb), between being as presence and being as
becoming (Sanskrit as and bhu), between subject and object of knowledge (viṣaya and viṣayin), space and time etc..xvi “Atomism” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition, ed. Donald M. Borchert, Macmillan, New York etc.,vol.1,
p. 384.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
Along with ‘monistic’ and ‘atomistic’ models, a third type of models relevant to the
atomism has been developed in Indian thought (with no clear counterpart in Greece): a whole is
something more than a mere mechanical addition of parts, it is closely connected to them
through the relation of inherence (samavāya). I call this model ‘holistico-atomistic’. It was
specially elaborated in the Vaiśeṣika and Nyāya systems. Its main difference from the Buddhist
‘atomistic’ model consists in the idea that atoms are enduring substances (and not the momentary
phenomena of the Buddhists) constituting things not directly through their mere collecting
together (as in the Buddhist atomism) but through some intermediate “molecules” – dyads and
triads. These latter are the most elementary (atomic) wholes integrity of which, as we will see
later, calls for a special metaphysical justification.
According to the substance-quality relationship, atomism may be classified into three
main types – “substantial” (atoms are permanent substances, their qualities are secondary and
changeable), “qualitative” (atoms are properties), and “intermediate” (both substance and
qualities participate in atom’s identity). The most consistent exemplification of the “substantial”
atomism seems to be the Jaina doctrine (atoms are qualitatively homogeneous substances) in
India, and the atomistic doctrine of Leucippus-Democritus in Greece. The “qualitative” atomism
is represented in India by the Buddhist Abhidharmic theory of dharmas (where dharmas are a
kind of “phenomenological” properties without underlying substance); in Greece - by the theory
of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, according to which there are as many qualitatively different
“atoms” (he called them “seeds”) as there are different qualified substances in nature. The
Vaiśeṣika atomism, which I will examine later on in more details, represents the third type.
The three models of wholes and their varieties discussed so far, as I will show further on,
were logically interdependent in the sense that each of them carried to its logical conclusion gave
birth to problems calling for the help of some other.
With regard to the problem of the linguistic presuppositions of atomism, it is very
important to note that in India from the very early time, language has become a subject of a
specialized theoretical reflection. It is namely in two modes of recitation of the Vedic hymns that
xvii We may also call ‘atomistic’ or ‘atomism’ in a larger sense of the word any doctrine of the reducibility of the
complex to the simple: in this sense, one can identify epistemological atomism with its units of perception; linguistic
atomism with its alphabetic principle; logical atomism, postulating atomic or elementary propositions; biological
atomism, with its discrete organic units (cells or genes); and, surely, mathematical atomism, namely, the doctrine—
originating with the Pythagoreans of the 6th century BCE—that all mathematical concepts are ultimately reducible
to numbers. One can also mention the atomistic doctrines of space, time and movement. For me all these kinds of
‘atomism’ are exemplifications of the atomistic style of thinking (See my paper "Atomistic Mode of Thinking" as
Exemplified by the Vaiśeṣika Philosophy of Number, in: Asiatische Studien/ Études Asiatiques, XLVIII, 2, 1994, p.
781-806).
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
we find the first exemplifications of the “monistic” and “atomistic” models: the first one is
padapасha (recitation by words) and the second is saṃhitаpасha (continuous recitation), both
were proposed in the “phonetics” (śikṣā), one of the earliest Vedic ‘disciplines’xviii.
In the Rik-Pratiśākhya (II.1), an expression: saṃhitā padaprakṛtiḥ gave rise to a
problem: which of the two (saṃhitā or pada) was meant to be the basis (prakṛti) of the other? If
the compound padaprakṛtiḥ is interpreted as determinative, the sense of the expression is: "the
saṃhitа is the basis of the pada", but if this compound is understood as possessive, we may read
the phrase the other way: "the saṃhita has the pada as its basis". The difference of opinion
among commentators of this text is suggestive of the two possibilities: either the Veda was
created word after word as an additive whole (the atomistic model) or it from time immemorial
presented itself as one indivisible totality which was subsequently divided into conventional
parts – words etc. (the monistic model)xix.
But what is even more important with regard to these speculative possibilities is the fact
that Indian thinkers did not simply used Sanskrit (as Greeks thinkers used Greek), did not simply
dwell in it (if we recall the famous Heidegger’s expression ‘Language is the house of Being’),
but, from the very early times, made it a subject of analysis and theoretization (Indian
Vyākaraṇa was the earliest linguistic science in the history of mankindxx).
This fact explains for me the much more important role of atomism in India as compared
with the atomistic tradition in Greece. The atomistic doctrine has gradually become a
constitutive part of a pan-Indian philosophy of nature, shared or systematically challenged – in
more or in less degree - by thinkers of the majority of Indian philosophical schools. Among the
atomists we find the Jainas, Ājīvikas, Buddhists (Abhidharmist thinkers), Vaiśeṣikas and
Nāyaiyikas, Mīmāṃsākas, some Vedāntists (dualistic school of Madhva) and even the later
followers of Sāṃkhya which introduced atoms along their traditional tanmātras (“fine
xviii The Pratiṣākhyas, the oldest phonetic texts dealing with the manner in which the Vedas are to be enunciated are
dated as early as 500 BCE.
xix Later, Bhartṛhari (fifth century AD) in his concept of the sentence-meaning (Vākyapadīya, II,41-48), while
expressing his commitment to the monistic model (sentence is indivisible meaning-bearer; words are but
conventional constructions of the Grammarians), proposed other kinds of approaches to this problem under the
rubrics of khaṇḍapakṣa (opinions about divisibility of sentence-meaning), some of which are presented as two
different interpretations of the śabdasaṃghāta – the point of view according to which the sentence-meaning is
composed of the word-meanings: in one case the word-meanings are the same inside and outside the sentence
(atomistic model of additive whole), in the other, words obtain their meaning only inside the sentence due to their
relation with each other (holistico-atomistic model).xx The great Indian grammarian Pāṇini (c.450-350 BCE) mentioned the names of his predecessors - other
grammarians, etymologists and phoneticians. It means that at that time grammar and other sciences already existed
as established traditions.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
elements”). Among their opponents - the Yogācāra and Mādhyamika Buddhists and the
Advaita-Vedāntins. Thus, almost all the participants of Indian philosophical community took
part (especially during the period of the Buddhist-Brahmanical controversies) in the discussion
of atomistic doctrines.
In Greece, the atomistic tradition, in the strict sense of the word, was rather marginal as
compared with the Platonian idealism and, especially, with the Aristotelian mainstream
qualitative philosophy of nature and its late Hellenistic and Medieval scholastic developments in
Europe and the Middle East.
What was the relationship of our atomistic thinkers to the monistic models developed in
their respective traditions?
It is generally recognized that in Greek philosophy, Leucippus and his disciple
Democritus (fifth century BC)xxi elaborated their theory of atoms and void as an attempt to
reconcile the sense-data experience with the Eleatic monism. According to Parmenides,
illusionary sensory image due to opinion (doxa) should be discarded for the mind could
contemplate the eternal peace, identity, unity, oneness, homogeneity, density of the immutable
true being as its own naturexxii. Aristotle was the first to suggest that Leucippus and Democritus
attributed properties of Parmenide’s ungenerated, indestructible, unalterable, homogeneous,
solid, and indivisible Being to atoms, and recognized the reality of the non-being in the form of
void to justify the multiplicity and change. Though the opinion had been thus reinstated in its
right to pronounce something reliable about Reality, Democritus retained Parmenide’s division
between the way of truth and the way of opinion in the form of , accordingly, “legitimate
knowledge” (of atoms and void), and ‘bastard knowledge” (of gross objects given us by the
senses), and for this reason true only by convention (Fr. 9)xxiii. Nevertheless, in another fragment
(Fr.125), mind is presented as somehow based on the senses, though it examines their data
critically.
Thus, the atomistic doctrine of Leucippus-Democritus has been developed on the basis
of some presuppositions common with the monistic model of Eleates. An atom is indivisible for
xxi No writings by Leucippus or Democritus have survived; all we possess is just a few fragments cited in the works of other ancient authors. One of the most important collections of these fragments can be found in Hermann Diels’s Die Fragmente derVorsokratiker, Vol. II, 6th ed., with additions by WaltherKranz, ed. (Berlin, 1952). There is an English translation of the fragments in Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1948; see also more recent collection in Salomo Luria. Democritus. Texts. Translation. Research. Leningrad 1970.xxii “Thinking and the thought that it is are the same; For not without what is, in which it is expressed”. (The Way of
Truth, B 8.34-36) For thought and being are the same”. (Ibid. B 3). See:
http://parmenides.com/about_parmenides/ParmenidesPoem.html?page=12.
xxiii The most important source for Democritus’s theory of knowledge is Sextus Empiricus (see
Diels etc. op. cit.)
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
the same reason as Parmenide’s Being (division presupposes void, atom’s solidity excludes any
void). Both (Eleats and Atomists) accepted that Being is something immutable, ungenerated,
indestructible, unalterable, homogeneous etc., both regarded void as a condition of multiplicity
and motion, both drew a distinction between true knowledge and opinion, both agree on the
impossibility of qualitative change (Democritus reduced it to quantitative change). In fact, the
atoms were a sort of miniature Parmenidean Beings, separated by void.
In India, some atomistic worldviews were opposed to the monistic model more
radically than it was the case with Eleats and Leucippus-Democritus. So the Buddhists of the
Abhidharma schools completely rejected permanence, substantiality and continuity of one single
principle like the Brahman/Ātman of the Upaniṣads, or eternal elements in the doctrine of
Pakuda Kaccāyanaxxiv (these essentialist doctrines were classified in the Buddhist literature under
the rubric of ‘ṣaśvatavāda’, doctrine of permanence). In the Abhidharmic ontology, static being
had been replaced with momentary becoming, and enduring substance - with series of dharmas
(point-instances).
However, from the Buddhist soteriological perspective, the atomistic doctrine meant to
represent not the world as it really exists independently of our knowledge, but the world that one
should experience and understand in order to get free from his or her enslavement in the
saṃsāra. In other words, the Buddhist atomistic views were epistemologically and
psychologically instrumental and practical, unlike the contemplative and theoretical
schematizations of the Greek Atomists. In the final analysis, the Buddhist’s atomistic doctrine
seems to be rather a by-product of their theory of dharmas (developed along with it during the
first half of the first millennium, but not being present in the early Buddhismxxv), than an
independent and systematic philosophy of nature.
Atoms (paramāṇu) are ultimate units of the sensitive matter (rūpa) existing in the
series (santāna) of point-instants (kṣaṇa) constituting the material things as well as the sense-
organs (indriya) fit for grasping them (the like grasps the like). The Vaibhaṣikas distinguished
between two types of paramāṇu – singular (dravya-paramāṇu) and collective (saṃghata-
paramāṇu). The singular atom is generated by the four great elements (mahābhūta) represented
by their main properties (for example, hardness and action of supporting for earth, moisture and
xxiv According to the theory which was attributed to this Ājīvika in the Buddhist Samaññaphalasutta or in the Jaina
Sūtrakṛtāṅga, there are seven eternal and immutable elements earth, air, fire, water, joy, sorrow and life (joy and
sorrow are comparable with Empedocles’ love and hate).xxv The idea of material atom (here material means possessing the property of resistance to impact or impermeability
– sapratighata) is explicitly formulated in the Abhidharmahṛdaya of Dharmaṣri (2nd century AD), further developed
in the Mahāvibhāṣa and especially in works of Vasubandhu and Sañghabhadra. The position of the Sarvāstivāda-
Vaibhaṣika is systematically exposed by Vasubandhu in his “Abhidharmakoṣabhāṣya”.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
action of cohesion for water etc.); it has no parts or extension, and exists only in company of
other singular atoms. The minimal “collective” atom has eight components (four elements, four
properties derived from them, like color-form, smell, taste, touch). Other varieties of ‘collective’
atoms may include four sense-capacities. Each atom contains an equal portion of all the eight
components (four mahābhūtas and four bhautikas), therefore the distinction between, say, the
atom of earth from the atoms of other elements is explained by the predominance (adhika) of
action of supporting. A comparison inevitably comes to mind between the Buddhist idea of atom
as a cluster of properties and Anaxagoras qualitative atomism, especially, his idea that every
thing contains all possible kinds of “seeds” and is named after the seed that predominates in it.
So, sense-qualities and sense-faculties considered by the Buddhists as ‘atoms’ had been
only subjective and, therefore, not fully reliable sensations for Leucippus-Democritus. According
to the latter, all the apparent differences between gross things in sight, smell, taste and touch
perceived by our senses (called “secondary properties” further on) can be reduced to
modifications in shapes, size, arrangement and position (called “primary properties” further on)
of atoms. Democritus elaborated a detailed correspondence between specific tastes, colors,
smells, and so on to specific shapes and sizesxxvi.
Nevertheless, in spite of that principle differences between the Buddhists and Leucippus-
Democritus, both rejected reasoning in terms of final causes, or prime mover. The Greek
atomists denying that our universe was intelligently designed, brought it under some universal
mechanical laws. Leucippus stated that “nothing happens at random, but everything for a reason
and by necessity” (Fr. 2). Aristotle blames them for not giving a clear explanation of the origin
of movement, but for them motion was natural to atomsxxvii. The Buddhists made similar accent
on the importance of the causal explanation of the current events ("What earlier circumstances
caused this event?") and the irrelevance, or inexpediency of searching for some final
“metaphysical” cause or causes, like eternal soul or Īśvara. Thus, according to the Buddhist
doctrine of "dependent origination" (pratītya-samutpāda), all phenomena arise in a mutually
interdependent web of causes and effectsxxviii.
xxvi Thus, an acid taste is composed of angular, small, thin atoms and a sweet taste of round, moderate-sized ones.
xxvii This atomistic determinism has received an interesting development in the doctrines of Epicurus (341–270
BCE) and, especially, of the Latin poet Lucretius Carus (96–55 BCE). Lucretius mentions the so called swerve of
atoms, by which they shift by a minimal amount in their downward course (De rerum natura 2.216–293), to
account for free will and also for the initial interaction of atoms productive of our universe. So, in the final analysis,
it was rather an auto-organization of chaos than a pure mechanical determinism.xxviii The typical formula of the pratītya samutpāda is like the following: ‘When this is, that is’. ‘From the arising of
this comes the arising of that’. ‘When this isn't, that isn't’. ‘From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that’.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
Though the Buddhists did not develop their atomistic doctrine as systematically as the Greek
atomists or some other Indian philosophers, like the Jainas or the Vaiśeṣikas, they may be called
the champions of atomism in a more large sense of the word. They tried to get account of all the
phenomena in terms of ultimate units (dharmas), discontinuous in time (having no duration or
momentary – kṣaṇika), space and substance.
The ‘atomistic model’ is also present in Jaina’s philosophyxxix. In so far as homogeneous
atoms (there are no distinct kinds of atoms corresponding to the four kinds
of elements) form compounds (skandha) and the compounds form material
things we are dealing here with the model of the additive whole. Each atom has
one kind of taste, one smell, one color, and two kinds of touch (some atoms are viscid and
some dry, and these charge-like properties mediate their interactions). Due to their
eternal properties, they are capable of producing "aggregates": earth, water, shadow, sense
objects, karmic matter (the Jainas explain karma naturalistically as a kind of fine atomic matter
that sticks to the soulxxx). Along with the material atoms, the Jainas spoke about some fine atoms
that are so subtle that an unlimited number of them may occupy only one point of space, like
intersected sunbeams. It is clear that this kind of atoms could not be identified with material
mini-bodies as the latter must have some magnitude, solidity and impenetrability to the effect
that two of them cannot occupy one and the same place. The Jaina atom, in Thomas McEvilly’s
opinion, is subjected to the same reductio ad absurdum as Zeno of Elea has developed with
regard to the supposedly Pythagorean idea of the monad-points, the addition of which never
causes increase in magnitudexxxi. Some other kinds of the similar reductio were proposed by the
Indian thinkers of different affiliations (the Mahāyana Buddhists as well as the followers of the
Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikaxxxii).
But apart from the atomistic model of the Buddhists and the Jainas, Indian thinkers, namely
the Vaiśeṣika and Nāyaiyikas, have developed even more moderate alternatives to the extreme
monism of the Advaitic type. I called it holistico-atomistic model because it combines a
discontinuity of the atoms with a continuity of the wholes formed by themxxxiii.
xxix The Jaina atomism is placed by Indian tradition as early as the six century BCE, some scholars date it by the first
century BCE, other scholars hold that the Ājīvika Pakuda Kaccāyana exposed the most primitive from of atomism at
the time of the Buddha. But I agree with those scholars who hold that it is the Jaina atomism which bears the most
archaic character (for example the idea of the material karmic particles which are said to stick to the soul). For more
details about the discussion concerning this subject see: McEvilley op.cit., p. 317-318.xxx A comparison with Plato’s idea of matter which sticks to a pure soul inevitably comes to mind (Cf. Republic X
611, b-d).xxxi McEvilly op.cit., p. 319.xxxii Some of these arguments will be referred to further on.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
What is common between the Vaiśeṣika and the Greek atomistic traditions is the fact
that both adopted the monistic model to the needs of their appropriate atomistic theories. In the
same manner as Leucippus and Democritus, or Anaxagores, bestow their ultimate units with
some important characteristics of Eleatic Being, the Vaiṣeṣikas attributed to their atoms
eternality and imperceptibility which for Indian thinkers were revealing the entities of the para-
empirical level (represented by Ātman or Brahman in Advaita, or Puruṣa in Sāṃkhya). For this
reason, I argue that the Vaiśeṣikas developed a kind of ‘metaphysical’ atomismxxxiv.
As in Greece, in India, a perceptibility was closely associated with the transient
character, liability to birth and destruction of gross things, whereas eternal undestructible entities
were supposed to be beyond direct observation. Therefore, in India, one of the most important
characteristics of atoms seems to be their imperceptibility. It may be explained in two different
ways (1) by their excessive smallness and subtleness (aṇutva) (2) by their metaphysical or
transcendental nature.
But the question arises as to how imperceptible atoms can form perceptible objects
possessive of colour, smell, etc.? Greek atomists reduced the qualities of perceptible objects to
shape, size, position etc. of the atoms which are too tiny to be perceived. In India, the
explanation of the imperceptibility of atoms by their tiny size was shared by the Jains, Ājīvikas
and Buddhists (the latter believed that atoms can be perceived not separately, but only in large
accumulations, like one hair in accumulation of hairs). But the Vaiśeṣikas, at least as early as
Praśastapāda, hold their atoms to be imperceptible not because of the limited sense capacities xxxv,
but because their atoms are a sort of metaphysical, transcendental entities. As in Indian tradition,
only yogins we supposed to see and to experience the highest reality, it is symptomatic that the
Vaiśeṣikas refer to the perception of yogins (yogipratyakṣa) as instrumental in the direct
cognition of atomsxxxvi.But what is the nature of these atoms? While for the Greek atomists all the atoms were
made up of the same material, or substantially homogeneous (it is also true of the Jaina atoms
xxxiii The Vaiṣeśikasūtras view the existence of atoms as a corollary of the world's existence; they list their
properties, pointing out that the properties of earth atoms can change if exposed to fire (pīlu-pāka-vāda), and so on
— it is an outline of the doctrine to be further elaborated in the commentaries. Praśastapāda uses atomistic principles
to explain the emergence and destruction of the world; he dwells at length on pīlu-pāka ('atom-baking'), introduces
the concept of atomic compounds – the dyads and triads, and describes the ways in which macro-objects are formed
from the tiniest imperceptible particles. All these ideas are developed and specified in the commentaries on the
Praśastapādabhāṣya: Vyomaiśiva’s (circa 948-972 AD) Vyomavatī, Śrīdhara’s (circa 950-1000) Nyāyakandalī
and Udayana’s (circa 1050-1100) Kiraṇāvalī — of the three commentaries it is Śrīdhara’s being the most
circumstantial presentation of the Vaiśeṣika’s atomistic theory.
xxxiv See my paper: The Atomistic Theory of Vaiśeṣika: Problems of Interpretation. - History of Indian Philosophy.
A Russian Viewpoint. Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, (republication of the 1993) (in press).
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
which in this respect are the most closed to that of Leucippus-Democritus), not subjected to
change and different only in shape, position, movements etc., the Vaiśeṣikas held their atoms to
be materially different substances having different qualities, but the same spherical
(parimāṇḍala) shape and small (aṇu) size. Thus, the sense-properties of atoms, like color, taste,
smell, touch - real for the Vaiśeṣikas because they belong to the atoms, were reduced by the
Greeks to infinitely different shapes, sizes etc. On the contrary, shapes etc. reduced by the
Vaiśeṣikas to an indifferent parimāṇḍala, were hypostasized by the Greeksxxxvii.
Closely connected with this is the difference in their understanding of the relationship
between atoms and elements (they are four in both traditions – earth, water, fire, air/wind). If the
Greeks explained the variety of elements by the variety of shapes, arrangements, positions and
movements of their respective atoms, for the Vaiśeṣikas the atoms, from the very begining, were
in possession of the elements’ sense-qualities and it is namely according to these qualities that
they were classified into four groups: atoms of earth possessive of smell, color, taste, touch,
atoms of fire having color, taste, touch, atoms of water having taste, touch, and atoms of wind
having only touch. These qualities except for color and touch undergoing change in the process
of heating (pīlupāka) are said to be as permanent as their respective atoms.
What conclusions may be drawn from this difference? The Greek atomists were trying to
exclude what they considered to be subjective sense-qualities from their world picture which was
supposed to be “lawfully’ based on mind. By this, they were forerunners of the classical
European science with its ideal of “objectivity” factoring out observer’s sense-reactions. For the
Vaiśeṣikas, as for the majority of Indian philosophers, senses are considered to be a more
reliable instrument of cognition (pramāṇa) than mind or reason resorting to the logical inference
(anumāṇa).
But whether the Vaiśeṣika paramāṇu were the atoms, that are indivisible, in the same sense
as the Greek atoms? The Sanskrit terms for “atom” aṇu and parāmāṇu mean literally
“small/fine”, 'least'/finest', accordingly. In Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, the term 'aṇu' has at least two
meanings—it denotes (i) substance (dravya) and refers exclusively to atom as a material particle;
xxxv That natural limitation can, in principle, be overcome with the help of instruments, such as a microscope.xxxvi See my paper: La connaissance suprarationelle chez Praśastapāda. - Asiatische Studien/ Études Asiatiques
LII/1/1998, pp. 85-116.
xxxvii So, atoms of Leucippus and Democritus, unlike the Vaiśeṣika ones, have nothing in common with the sense-
reactions produced by them: the taste is explained by the atom’s shapes, black and white color by their roughness
and smoothness, correspondingly, hot temperature (and fire) by the movements of the spherical atoms, cold
temperature – by the position and motionlessness of the cubical atoms.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
and (ii) size (parimāṇa) as a quality (guṇa) of substance which is attributed not only to a single
atom, but also to a dyad (dvyaṇuka), composed of two atoms. These Sanskrit terms suggest the
dichotomy of fine/gross (sukṣma-sthūla), frequent enough in Indian philosophy, especially in
Jainism and Sāmmkhya but not necessarily implying indivisibility, for example the tanmātra
(subtle elements constitutive of gross elements) of Sāṃkhya are fine but not atomic.
Nevertheless, the history of Indian atomism bears witness to the notion of indivisibility being
invariably associated, directly or indirectly, with another qualities of paramāṇu, particularly,
with its eternal character (nitya). An eternal substance is such because it has no parts into which
it could desintegrate, and therefore it is indivisible. In the course of its evolution, Indian atomism
attaches an increasing importance to the notion of indivisibility, which finally comes to be
regarded as the key property of paramāṇu.
It is quite evident from the Nyāya-sūtras, (further on NS) where three possibilities of division
of whole into parts are examined (NS 4.2.15-17): the first one is a division till the full
destruction, or rather dissolution of things (pralaya). If we accept this, it means that all things
consist of “pralaya” (dissolution) and simply not exist (NS 4.2.15). The other possibility is an
infinite division (NS 4.2.17) – in that case, the very large object as well as the minute dyad would
both consist of an endless number of particles (the famous paradox of the Mount Meru which is
equal to a grain because both of them consist of equally innumerable partsxxxviii). As neither
destruction, nor regressus ad infinitum are admissiblexxxix, the only valid possibility is to limit
the scale of diminishing minuteness by postulating its terminal point in the
form of the atom—the utmost small and thus indivisible physical bodyxl.
But the criticism of atomism in both traditions has revealed that for one and the same thing to
be something material - even of the smallest dimension - and, at the same time, indivisible is
xxxviii This argument of the Nyāya authors may be compared to the Zeno paradox of divisibility mentioned before.
xxxix This proof of the existence of the atom reveals some stricken similarities with the argumentation in favor of
postulating indivisible entities ascribed to Democritus by Aristotle: “Since … the body is divisible through and
through, let it have been divided. What, then, will remain? A magnitude? No: that is impossible, since then there
will be something not divided, whereas ex hypothesis the body was divisible through and through. But if it be
admitted that neither a body nor a magnitude will remain, and yet division is to take place, the constituents of the
body will either be points (i.e. without magnitude) or absolutely nothing. If its constituents are nothings, then it
might both come-to-be out of nothings and exist as a composite of nothings: and thus presumably the whole body
will be nothing but an appearance” (Aristotle. On Generation and Corruption, Part II, translated by H. H. Joachim
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/gener_corr.1.i.html).xl As Uddyotakara puts it, “When a clod of earth comes to be divided into smaller and smaller pieces, that point at
which the division ceases, and then which there is nothing smaller, is what we call “paramāṇu” (the atom)”(
Vārttika to the NS 4.2.16).
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
fraught with undesirable consequences. The purely physical character of atom as a micro-body is
threatening its metaphysical status - that of the ultimate cause and the origin of all composed
things. This difficulty is manifested first of all in the problem of atoms’ combination - the way
the atoms are connected with one another. According to the Yogācāra Buddhist criticsxli of the
Vaiśeṣika atomism, as atoms are capable of conjunction they must be made up of component
parts (the argument is exposed in the NS 4/2/24xlii).
As Vatsyāyana explains,
“ and becomes
cseparation b
t
- c
xliii
In other words, assuming that one atom may enter in conjunction with other atoms, we
must agree that it has component parts, but if it has component parts, it cannot be the atom, the
smallest and further indivisible corpuscle. This is a kind of difficulty that arises in all forms of
philosophical atomism as distinct from scientific atomism. As a matter of fact, if an atom is
identified as a physical body, its indivisibility may be problematic, but if for the sake of
indivisibility the atom is assimilated to a mathematical point, it would be impossible to explain
how these points form a physical bodyxliv.
Facing this kind of difficulty the Greeks and after them the Arabic atomists have come to
distinguish between two types of divisibility - physical and mental. According to some not very
reliable testimony, Democritus draws a distinction between atoms, on the one side, and logically
or mentally discernable parts of atoms – the ameros (literally ‘not having parts), on the other
xli Uddyotakara refers to Vasubandhu’s Vimṣatikavṛtti.
xlii [Objection] [An atom must be composed of parts], also because the conjunction [of one atom with other atoms] is
possible. //NS 4.2.24// (Nyāya philosophy. Literal translation Gautama's Nyāyasūtra and Vātsyāyana's Bhāṣya.
Part IV. Tr. M.Gangopadhyaya, Calcutta, 1976).
xliii The Nyāya-sūtras of Gautama : with the Bhāṣya of Vātsyāyana and the Vārttika of Uddyotakara. Volume IV. /
translated into English, with notes from Vāchaspati Miṣra's 'Nyāya-vārttika-tātparyaṭīkā;', Udayana's
'Pariśuddhi', and Raghuttama's Bhāsyachandra, by Ganganatha Jha/, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi etc., p. 1616.
xliv In Aristotle’s words, “… when the points were in contact and coincided to form a single magnitude, they did not
make the whole any bigger (since, when the body was divided into two or more parts, the whole was not a bit
smaller or bigger than it was before the division): hence, even if all the points be put together, they will not make
any magnitude” (Op.cit.).
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
side. This distinction has become clearer with the atomistic doctrine of Epicures and his
followers. Even the later Aristotelian minima naturalia theory did not mean much more than a
theoretical limit of divisibility – rather potential than actual.
This attempt to draw a clear-cut distinction between mental and physical divisibility, or
indivisibility, seems to have no counterpart in the classical Vaiśeṣika atomism. This fact may be
explained by the absence in the Indian theoretical tradition of any parallel opposition between
actuality and potentiality which had been so important for the Greek thought.
But if the Vaiśeṣika atom is such an imperceptible “metaphysical” entity, how could it
have color, taste, smell or touch which are sense qualities par excellence? Here we touch upon
the core problem of the Vaiśeṣika’s atomism – how to account for the transition from
imperceptible atoms to perceptible gross things? Why this problem presents a challenge for the
Vaiśeṣika’s metaphysics? First of all, because of their own concept of causality, according to
which qualities of effects result from the homogeneous qualities of their causes, so, if there is a
smallness (aṇutva) in the cause (atom) there must be also smallness - even of a greater degree -
in the effects (combination of atoms). Taking in account this rule, there is no continuity and
transition between small (aṇutva) and big size (mahattva), and by the same token, between
imperceptible eternal atoms and perceptible gross things.
It is namely for this reason that the Vaiśeṣikas have finally arrived to the conclusion that
single atoms could not constitute the direct cause of the world. Śrīdhara argued that single atoms
cannot be productive, because if they could, they would eternally produce indestructible effects
like themselves. A dyad could neither produce perceptible things as a combination of two atoms
have the same minute size (aṇu) as atoms themselves, and because it is not number "two" but
numbers beginning from "three" onwards which are productive of large size associated with
perceptible gross size of things (mahat). As for the triad, in order to be even of a minimal
perceptible size, it must have constitutive parts which themselves are effects, i.e. combinations of
atoms, and not single atoms. Therefore, the parts of a triad are dyads (a substance-effect), not
three single atoms (substances-causes). In the final analysis, it is a triad composed of six atoms
which constitutes a real building block of the material universe. While a single atom is held to be
imperceptible, a triad made up of six atoms, is considered to be the smallest perceptible entity.
The Vaiśeṣikas compare it with a mote of dust in a sunbeamxlv. In the final analysis, there are
two main “quantum jumps” in the construction of the material universe : from single atoms to
dyads and then from dyads to triads.
xlv The same perceptible image of atom was proposed by Greek atomists, according to Aristotle (Aristotle. On Soul I,
2).
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
Thus, to overcome a discontinuity between atoms and macro-objects, between partless
and divisible entities, the Vaiśeṣikas have proposed a rather complicated decision of this
question along quasi-Pythagorean lines: if a combination of two or more atoms is not different
from a single atom by its size, it has to be different by the number (saṃkhyā) of the atoms
constitutive of it. As isolated atoms, according to Praśastapāda, exist only during the pralaya
(the cosmic periodical dissolution) the problem of their transformation into gross things arises
only at the very beginning of the new world cycle. Atoms themselves being deprived of any
intrinsic properties that may compel them to enter in combinations (like Jaina atoms which are
mutually attracted by the opposition of their properties of dryness and viscidity) are in need of
some external prime mover. The role of this mover is played by the adṛṣṭas – unseen positive
(dharma) or negative (adharma) karmic forces produced by good or bad actions of living beings
and accumulated in their souls (ātman). As souls are eternal all-pervasive and immaterial
substances, adṛṣṭas being their qualities (guṇas), are also a kind of omnipresent structural
factors constitutive of the moral and spiritual state of our universe. It is due to the adṛṣṭas that
its main parameters have been kept and carried on through the cosmic night and reproduced at
the beginning of the new world-period (kalpa).
But why are the atoms combined into the dyads and triads? The Vaiśeṣika’s answer is
deistic – the dyads are resulting out of Iśvara's simultaneous cognition (apekṣabuddhi) of two
atoms, triads - of three dyads. The role of Īśvara, in the final analysis, is like that of Demiourgos
in Platon's Timeus; as for the adṛṣṭas, they may be compared to the eidos (forms) - the original
design that provides Demiourgos with a paradigm of creation of this world. Evidently, the
introduction of Īśvara was necessary to justify this numerical scheme of progressive
complexification of matter. Were there no dyads and triads, there would be no need for Īśvara's
apekśabuddhi.
The speculative character of the Vaiśeṣikas’ atomism was disputed even by their
realistic allies – the Mīmāṃsākas who did not insist on the absolute indivisibility and
minuteness being quite content with perceptible atoms in the form of motes. As for the role of
Īśvara in the creation of the gross-things, it looks like an artificial ad hoc hypothesis rather
then a fully developed theistic or deistic argument. In the normal state of the universe, when
its karmicaly determined structure is well established, Īśvara does not interfere into the
generating of gross things. What makes a pot is not only its material, but also its form. Among
such form-making factors the Vaiśeṣika authors seem to suggest a vyūha – loose or tight
arrangement of the dyads, which, in its turn, is determined by the adṛṣṭa of the person
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
making it. It is the adṛṣṭa or rather the adriṣṭas (in the plural) that play a role a teleological
factor.
Śrīdhara argues: “Though the atoms [of earth] have no species, nevertheless as far as
their arrangement (vyūha) is determined by the force of the adṛṣṭas, their products have species”
The fact that atoms of earth have no sub-classes means that they do not have identity of
particular things, like pots, cows, sugar etc. while the things made up of them have it due to the
adṛṣṭa”xlvi.
It may follow from this, that sense-qualities though somehow present in individual atoms
are specified as some particular smell, taste, color etc. only in the atomic compounds, in the
“molecules” – dyads and triads (dvyaṇuka and tryaṇuka). Depending of their vyūha these
compounds become constitutive parts of sugar or other particular things. But, as we saw,
according to Śrīdhara, this vyūha is the result of a certain adṛṣṭa. Thus, the structure of things
created on this earth by human agents seems to depend on their unseen karmic potentials.
How could the adṛṣṭa which is a quality of ātman have something in common with the
production of sugar or any other thing? As I mentioned before, for the Vaiśeṣikas, souls are all-
pervasive and omnipresent. However, even if the whole universe is permeated by the infinite
number of souls, that does not make it intelligent. Outside the body ātmans are deprived of
consciousness, though they still continue to be a support of the adṛṣṭas from the previous
existences, like at the time of the cosmic night. As everything made up by men here on earth
bears the impression of their adṛṣṭas, the material universe is inseparable from the moral order
(Dharma). In that sense, the universe is anthropologically programmed (cf. with anthropic
principle in modern physicsxlvii).
With this we come to the most important difference of the two atomistic traditions
compared in this paper. If we agree that atomism, whatever cultural form it may take, is
condemned to oscillate between materialism and immaterialism, we may arrive to the conclusion
that Greek atomism was more consistent in developing a materialistic and mechanical world
view: Leucippus held that there are an infinite number of atoms moving for all time in an infinite
void, forming into cosmic systems, or kosmoi, by means of a whirling motion. From ancient
times, the Greek atomism was considered to be a kind of scientific approach based on reasoning
xlvi Praśastapādabhāṣyam with the Commentary Nyāyakandalī of Śrīdhara. Ed. by Vindhyesvan Prasad Dvivedin.
India: шri Satguru Publications, 1895 (reprint 1984), p.31; Padārthadharmasaṃgraha of Praśastapāda. Transl.
into English by G.Jha. CO 4. Delhi–Varanasi (reprint from Pandit 1903–1915), 1982, p.75.
xlvii About the connection of the Vaiśeṣika atomism with the antropic principle see Plamen Gradinarov. Anthropic
Web of the Universe: Atom and Atman. Philosophy East and West. Vol.39 No.1 (January 1989), pp. 27-46.
Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece
and observation. The subsequent development of the atomistic ideas in philosophical and
scientific thought shared with this ancient doctrine the general idea that universe should be
inquired into from some ‘objective’ position excluding observers’ reactions to it as subjective
factors (‘secondary qualities’) distorting its otherwise reliable picture.
In India, the atomistic ideas never gave rise to a physical scientific-like theory. They
remained embedded in the specifically Indian view of the universe as designed for the moral
retribution of the living beings. In that sense, the Vaiśeṣika atomism, in a greater degree than the
Greek one, may serve (owing to its concept of adṛṣṭa) as an example of the synthesis between
philosophy of nature, ethics and soteriology. Modern Western philosophers of science through
the ideas of “noosphere”, “anthroposphere”, or the like, have already suggested that this kind of
synthesis may be quite possible and even desirable.