atomic theory in

indian philosophy

In classical Indian philosophy two Sanskrit words are used for the atom, the smallest
impartite physical entity:
anu and paramanu. On the existence of such atoms, the classical Indian philosophers
were divided. Among
the orthodox Brahmanic schools, the Nyaya-Vaiseoika philosophers were the preeminent
defenders of atomism,
with the Mimamsa philosophers as allies. On the opposite side, the Vedantins denied
atomism. Among the nonBrahmanic schools, the Jainas were clearly atomists, as were the Hinayana Buddhists.
Yogacara Buddhism, however, was strongly critical of atomism, and so too was Madhyamaka
Buddhism. The division of opinion on the issue thus cuts across the division between the
Brahmanic and non-Brahmanic schools. Instead, the range of views about atomism more
closely reflects the different schools commitment to realism. After all, atomism is usually
associated with a realist view of the world, in which atoms are taken to be objective, mindindependent entities. Predictably enough, then, we find espousing atomism such staunch
philosophical realists as the Naiyayikas and Mimamsakas, as well as such heterodox realists
as the Abhidharmikas and the Jainas. In contrast, opposition to atomism is led by such
antirealists as the Advaitins, the Madhyamikas, and the Yogacarins.
Atomists

The earliest Indian defenders of atomism may well be the Jainas, with texts defending
atomism that date at least as
far back as the third century CE. According to Jainism, everything in the world, save for souls
and space, is produced from matter, and all matter consists of indivisible atoms (paramau),
each occupying a single point of
space.Matter has two forms: a simple or atomic form and a compound (skandha) form.
Perceivable material objects
are compounds, composed of homogeneous atoms (there are no distinct kinds of atoms
corresponding to the four
kinds of elements). Impartite atoms are eternal, though this is obviously not true of the
partite compounds.
Indeed, atoms are supposed to be eternal precisely because they lack parts and are thus
incapable of disintegration.
But there is nonetheless a sense in which atoms, like compounds, are subject to qualitative
change because, though all atoms are indistinguishable in substance, qualities present in an
atom can be increased or decreased by many degrees. To explain how atoms join as they
do, the Jainas posit that some atoms are viscid and some dry, which permits aggregation of
the two different kinds of atoms (much as particles of barley meal combine to form lumps
when drops of water fall upon them).Moreover, they are viscid and dry in various degrees,
with no aggregates combining atoms with the lowest degrees of the two properties or equal
degrees of the same property.
These Jaina speculations help to highlight three central questions for which the Indian
philosophers expected
atomic theories to provide answers:What evidence do we have for the existence of atoms?
How is it possible for one
atom to join with another? Why do atoms come together as they do? With regard to the first
question, the two main Indian arguments for the existence of atoms are both inferential. The
first argument rests on the claim that there has
to be a lower limit to the scale of diminishing minuteness. Gross objects clearly exist and are
divisible. Yet the
process of physical division must have a terminal point, and this terminal point to division
must, by definition, be
indivisible. The second argument attempts a reductio ad absurdum of the denial of such a
terminal point: Unless

the process of division comes to an end, everything must be equally composed of an infinite
number of parts, and
hence all comparative ascriptions of unequal magnitude to gross objects are undermined.
The mountain and the
mustard seed would have to be of equal size! Of course, even if we are persuaded by these
arguments that atoms do exist, any atomic theory still needs to address the second question
and offer some explanation of how atoms combine to form partite entities. After all, atoms
are supposedly impartite, and yet our only direct experience of conjunction involves partite
things. But if we give up the thesis that atoms are truly impartite, we also have to give up
one of the main arguments for the existence of atoms. In reply, the Naiyayikas utilize their
distinctive mereological theory (theory of partition), according to which composite wholes
are never reducible to their parts,
though wholes inhere in parts. Hence a composite whole is a distinct entity, and not a mere
collection of its conjoined parts. Moreover, since the whole is thus distinct from the sum of
its parts, it can, unsurprisingly, have
properties not possessed by any of its parts. This particular mereological theory, however, is
unacceptable to both
Buddhists and Advaitins, who object that the idea that wholes inhere in their parts would
require a further relation
to relate inherence to its relata, and so on ad infinitum. The Buddhists maintain instead that
wholes are
unreal, being mere conceptual constructions, and only parts are real. Thus for them, all
conventional objects are
mere aggregates of atoms. The Jaina response is different again: The composite whole is just
the parts in a changed
state. Finally, even if we have reason to believe both that there are atoms and that they can
combine, a viable
atomic theory still needs to offer some sort of explanation of how atoms are brought
together. The Jaina explanation
in terms of a theory of varying degrees of viscidity and dryness builds on their view that all
atoms are homogeneous,
with the result that the division into the four elements is derived and secondary. The NyayaVaiseoika
school denies this, claiming instead that the four elements of earth, water, air, and fire
involve four kinds of atoms
sufficiently qualitatively different from each other so that the atoms of one element can give
rise only to products of
that element. The elaborate Nyaya-Vaiseoika theory of how atoms combine to form
compound entities seeks to address the issue of how atoms of infinitesimal magnitude can
add together to produce a macroscopic object. Their explanation is that when two
infinitesimal atoms combine into a dyad, there is a sort of quantum leap, and the new
submolecule thus formed has a minute (hrasva) magnitude. Dyads then combine into
perceptible molecules or triads
(composed of three dyads), and there is another quantum leap in magnitude to a gross
(mahat) quantum. The ddition
of gross quanta then straightforwardly accounts for the magnitude of macroscopic objects.
The point of this postulated double quantum jump from single atoms to dyads and then from
dyads to triads is to insist that the finite magnitude of the triad arises from the infinitesimal
atoms as a result of the number of the constituent atoms and not as a result of their
magnitude, as in gross objects. Unsurprisingly, many Indian philosophers (both atomist and
antiatomist) found this part of the Nyaya-Vaiseoika atomic theory unconvincing.Moreover, all
of this still leaves unexplained the initial conjunction of two atoms to produce a dyad. Later
the Nyaya-Vaiseoika school invoked Gods agency to help out here: Since all atoms are
insentient, the process of combination must be guided by an intelligent divine agent. Other
Indian philosophers disagreed, however, as to whether this amounts to a persuasive

argument for the existence of God or to just an ad hoc addition to an already unsatisfactory
atomic theory.
The Nyaya-Vaiseoika school took one advantage of its atomic theory to be that it can avoid
the Buddhist theory
of universal flux and can explain the identity of a substance through change in terms of the
identity of unchanging, eternal atoms. A substance can undergo change without the
constituent atoms changing because the qualities of a substance can change while the
substance persists.However, consider what happens when we fire a clay pot so that it
changes color. The Vaiseoikas claimed both that the unfired pot as a whole is replaced by a
new pot as a whole, and that the application of heat causes a change of qualities to occur at
the level of the individual atoms. But in admitting that change at the level of gross objects
involves change at the atomic level, the Vaiseoika theory risks collapsing into the Buddhist
theory of universal flux. Hence the Nyaya atomic theorists denied that change occurs at the
level of the individual atoms, claiming instead that the whole remains intact while the
change occurs.
Common to the different atomic theories of both Jainism and Nyaya-Vaiseoika are the claims
that the atoms are genuinely indivisible, infinitesimal, and eternal. Other Indian atomists
deny some of these claims. The Mimamsa school, for instance, is willing to admit that
whether entities are gross or minute is only relative. They
thus accept as atoms the dust motes visible in a sunbeam (these are triads in the NyayaVaiseoika system, the smallest perceivable particles). Although the Mimamsakas do not
entirely rule out the Nyaya-Vaiseoika conception of an atom as impossible, they criticize it as
an overly speculative thesis. Even if the dust mote is theoretically divisible and hence
apparently nonatomic, Mimamsakas are only willing to accept such atoms as are established
by
common experience. There is no purpose served by assuming any atoms beyond these. In
contrast, the Abhidharmika atomists affirm the existence of atoms smaller than dust motes
but deny that they are eternal, since in Buddhism everything is taken to be impermanent.
According to Buddhist atomic theory, although atoms are the smallest unit of matter, they
never occur alone, but rather occur only as members of an aggregate of at least seven or
eight atoms. Hence it is unsurprising that we do not experience individual atoms as
separately perceptible. But we do nevertheless perceive the aggregates and, contrary to
Nyaya-Vaiseoika claims, there are no aggregates distinct from the atoms themselves. Thus
our perception that the atoms constituting an aggregate are gross is really an illusion due to
the close and collective presence of a multitude of minute atoms.
antiatomists

The Vedantins and the Mahayana Buddhists were the chief representatives of Indian
antiatomism, though their
objections to atomism are frequently different and their own rival ontologies are significantly
distinct. One specifically Vedantin argument against atomism is that the Hindu scriptures
nowhere affirm it. Clearly, this argument is not intended to persuade non-Brahmanic atomists, but it is interesting to note that most Brahmanic
atomists too do not feel obliged to respond to it. The mere absence of a Vedic sanction is
apparently thought to
be obviously insufficient grounds for rejecting a philosophical theory. (A notable exception to
this general trend of indifference is the Naiyayika philosopher Udayana [eleventh century,
CE], who goes out of his way to argue that there is indeed a scriptural warrant for atomism.)
The Advaita Vedantins offered a more straightforwardly
philosophical objection to the Nyaya-Vaiseoika theory of atomic composition. They argued
that ontological
parsimony ought to make us reject the Naiyayikas posit of dyads as unnecessary, for why
can we not just say
instead that three atoms directly combine to form a triad, the smallest visible substance.
The gross magnitude of the

triad will then be explicable not in terms of the magnitude or aggregation of atoms, but in
terms of the number
of atoms. The main Indian argument that some form of atomism is rationally necessary is, of
course, that it is required to explain the existence of gross material objects, which are
indisputably partite. Again and again the atomists defended the controversial details of their
theories with an argument to the best explanation: that since all agree that there are
composite physical objects, one needs to posit atoms to best explain their existence and
nature. But this strategy presupposes a common commitment to realism about the external
world. The Indian antiatomists did not share this general commitment. This is particularly
obvious when we attend to the antiatomist arguments of the Yogacarin philosopher
Vasubandhu (fourth or fifth century CE). Vasubandhu began by explicitly affirming the
idealist thesis that everything is mind only. But realism, of course, denies this thesis.
Vasubandhu responded by arguing that realism is false because realism implies atomism
and atomism is incoherent. Like the Abhidharmikas, Vasubandhu rejected the NyayaVaiseoika theory of organic wholes as unsupported by experience. But he also rejected the
Abhidharma view that material wholes are mere aggregates of atoms, on the ground that for
this to be so, the atoms would have to be joined. Such conjunction is either partial or total. If
it is partial, the atoms must have parts in contact with one another; if it is total, all the
atoms must collapse into the same atom-sized space. Either way, there cannot be a plurality
of impartite atoms. Furthermore, an atom cannot be thought of as spatially extended
without allowing that it has a front part different from its back part. But if atoms are
unextended, then aggregates of them cannot constitute extended gross objects. Thus
atomism (and hence realism) is incoherent, and idealism is vindicated. Yogacara Buddhism is
admittedly a rather peculiar kind of idealism, since it denies the existence of both the
objects of consciousness and the subject of consciousness. Ultimately, all that exists is pure
consciousness
devoid of all subject/object duality. But whether or not Yogacara thought is best classified as
a variety of idealism,
it is indubitably a variety of antirealism. Moreover, while other Indian antiatomists, such as
the Madhyamikas and
the Advaitins, were certainly not idealists, they also in their various ways shared the
Yogacara thinkers antirealist
doubt of the commonsense assumption of an objective reality populated by ontologically
independent entities.
These Indian antiatomists are thus all equally unforgiving of the atomists general strategy
of attempting to excuse
the anomalies in their various atomic theories by an appeal to atomism as the best
explanation of gross external
objects. In classical Indian philosophy, the avowed aim of philosophy is liberation (moka).
For the Indian
antirealists, this goal is to be attained not by theorizing about the nature of a supposedly
objective external
world, but by transcending all such conceptions, including atomism and its presuppositions.
In this sense, there
is arguably a common antirealist motivation for Indian antiatomism, notwithstanding the
very significant philosophical differences among the different antiatomist schools.
See also Causation in Indian Philosophy.

B i b l i o g raphy
Gangopadhyaya, Mrinalkanti. Indian Atomism: History and
Sources. Calcutta, India: K. P. Bagchi, 1980. A splendid
anthology of Sanskrit primary sources together with
annotated English translations. Also contains a very useful
historical introduction.
Kapstein, Matthew T. Reasons Traces. Boston:Wisdom, 2001.
Chapter 7 is an excellent philosophical study of
Vasubandhus arguments against atomism.

Potter, Karl H., ed. Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The

Tradition of Nyaya-Vaiseika up to Ga|gesa. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1977. An extremely valuable
survey of early Nyaya-Vaisesika metaphysics.
Roy W. Perrett (2005)