Atheism in Hinduism

MAHESH DAGA





The core of Hindu scriptural tradition, it is commonly thought, is all about theism, or belief in God. But that is a huge misconception. Even disregarding the `heterodox' streams like the charvaks, with their underlying message of materialist hedonism, or Buddhism, the philosophical canon -call it higher Hinduism -leaves room for dissent on the question of the existence of God.Indeed, the reason why some schools of darshana -Purva and Uttar Mimansa, Sankhya and Yoga, Nyaya and Vaisheshika -are regarded as `orthodox' and others such as Jainism, Buddhism and Charvaks are not, has little or nothing to do with a belief in God. The real point of departure is whether a system of thought accepts the Vedas as the ultimate source of philosophical authority .
The so-called orthodox schools do -even though it has been argued that this acceptance is more notional than real -while the other three don't. The original meanings of the terms astika and nastika, too, hinge on this vital difference. While the astikas believe in the veracity and infallibility of the Vedas, the nastikas clearly don't.
Interestingly , atheism in the Indian tradition is not necessarily premised on a prior acceptance of materialism, either in the philosophical or everyday sense. All the atheistic schools mentioned above, even when they reject God, accept the existence of a permanent soul (atman), which is distinct from corporeal or physical reality .So, Indian atheism -except in the case of the charvaks -is strongly anti-materialistic.