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 extraordinary small. It was so small, such a tiny, early, transitional mass, a coagulation of the unsubstantial, of the non-yetsubstantial 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 nonextensional 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 tradition v. 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 au and paramu - were widely used in the ancient Indian phonetic tradition ( k)ix. There is a rather

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece mysterious statement of Bharthari in his Vkyapadya (I.110): It has been accepted by different (thinkers) that wind, atoms, cognition, become abda (word, sound, language). The view that the atoms become abda 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/words (abda) 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 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 Vaieika texts (Candramatis Daapadrthastra) 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 thought xiii, 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 IndoEuropean 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 patterns xv. 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 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,

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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 Upaniadic idea of the eternal Brahman/tman (as a single reality (developed in the Advaita-Vednta 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 - LeucippusDemocritus atomistic doctrinexvii. 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 (samavya). I call this model holistico-atomistic. It was specially elaborated in the Vaieika and Nyya 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 atoms identity). The most consistent exemplification of the substantial atomism seems to be the Jaina doctrine (atoms are qualitatively homogeneous substances) in

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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 Vaieika 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 we find the first exemplifications of the monistic and atomistic models: the first one is padapha (recitation by words) and the second is sahitpha (continuous recitation), both were proposed in the phonetics (ik), one of the earliest Vedic disciplinesxviii. In the Rik-Pratikhya (II.1), an expression: sahit padaprakti gave rise to a problem: which of the two (sahit or pada) was meant to be the basis (prakti) of the other? If the compound padaprakti is interpreted as determinative, the sense of the expression is: "the sahit is the basis of the pada", but if this compound is understood as possessive, we may read the phrase the other way: "the sahita 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 Heideggers expression Language is the house of Being), but, from the very early times, made it a subject of analysis and theoretization (Indian Vykaraa 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, jvikas, Buddhists (Abhidharmist thinkers), Vaieikas and Nyaiyikas, Mmskas, some Vedntists (dualistic school of Madhva) and even the later

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece followers of Skhya which introduced atoms along their traditional tanmtras (fine elements). Among their opponents - the Yogcra and Mdhyamika Buddhists and the Advaita-Vedntins. 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 nature xxii. Aristotle was the first to suggest that Leucippus and Democritus attributed properties of Parmenides 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 Parmenides 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 the same reason as Parmenides Being (division presupposes void, atoms 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.

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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/tman of the Upaniads, or eternal elements in the doctrine of Pakuda Kaccyanaxxiv (these essentialist doctrines were classified in the Buddhist literature under the rubric of avatavda, 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 sasra. 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 Buddhists 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 Buddhism xxv), than an independent and systematic philosophy of nature. Atoms (paramu) are ultimate units of the sensitive matter (rpa) existing in the series (santna) of point-instants (kaa) constituting the material things as well as the senseorgans (indriya) fit for grasping them (the like grasps the like). The Vaibhaikas distinguished between two types of paramu singular (dravya-paramu) and collective (saghataparamu). The singular atom is generated by the four great elements ( mahbhta) represented by their main properties (for example, hardness and action of supporting for earth, moisture and 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 mahbhtas 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

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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 LeucippusDemocritus, 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 atoms xxvii. 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 vara. Thus, according to the Buddhist doctrine of "dependent origination" (prattya-samutpda), all phenomena arise in a mutually interdependent web of causes and effectsxxviii. 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 Vai eikas, 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 kaika), space and substance. The atomistic model is also present in Jainas philosophy xxix. 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 McEvillys 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

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece causes increase in magnitudexxxi. Some other kinds of the similar reductio were proposed by the Indian thinkers of different affiliations (the Mahyana Buddhists as well as the followers of the Nyya-Vaieikaxxxii). But apart from the atomistic model of the Buddhists and the Jainas, Indian thinkers, namely the Vaieika and Nyaiyikas, 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. What is common between the Vaieika 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 Vaieikas attributed to their atoms eternality and imperceptibility which for Indian thinkers were revealing the entities of the paraempirical level (represented by tman or Brahman in Advaita, or Purua in Skhya). For this reason, I argue that the Vaieikas 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, o ne

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 (autva) (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,

jvikas and Buddhists (the latter believed that atoms can be perceived not
xxxv

separately, but

only in large accumulations, like one hair in accumulation of hairs). But the Vaie ikas, at least as

, 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 Vaieikas refer to the perception of yogins (yogipratyaka) 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
early as Praastapda, hold their atoms to be imperceptible not becaus e of the limited sense capacities

made up of the same material, or substantially homogeneous (it is also true of the Jaina atoms 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 Vai eikas held their atoms to be materially different substances having different qualities, but the same spherical (parimala) shape and small (au) size. Thus, the sense-properties of atoms, like color, taste, smell, touch - real for the Vaieikas 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 Vaieikas to an indifferent parimala, were hypostasized by the Greeksxxxvii.

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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 Vaieikas 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 (plupka) 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 observers sense-reactions. For the Vaieikas, as for the majority of Indian philosophers, senses are considered to be a more reliable instrument of cognition (prama) than mind or reason resorting to the logical inference (anuma). But whether the Vaieika
paramu were the atoms, that are indivisible, in the same sense as the Greek atoms? The Sanskrit terms for atom au and parmu mean literally small/fine, 'least'/finest', accordingly. In Nyya-Vaieika, the term 'au' has at least two meaningsit denotes (i) substance ( dravya) and refers exclusively to atom as a material particle; and (ii) size (parima) as a quality (gua) of substance which is attributed not only to a single atom, but also to a dyad (dvyauka), composed of two atoms. These Sanskrit terms suggest the dichotomy of fine/gross (sukma-sthla), frequent enough in Indian philosophy, especially in Jainism and Smmkhya but not necessarily implying indivisibility, for example the tanmtra (subtle elements constitutive of gross elements) of S khya

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 paramu, 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 paramu.

It is quite evident from the Nyya-stras, (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 parts xxxviii). As neither

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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 atomthe 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 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 Yogc ra Buddhist criticsxli of the Vaieika 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 Vatsyyana explains, and becomes c , separation b ; t , , , , , ; - c . , . 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 side. This distinction has become clearer with the atomistic doctrine of Epicures and his

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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 Vai eika 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 Vaieika 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 Vaieikas atomism how to account for the transition from imperceptible atoms to perceptible gross things? Why this problem presents a challenge for the Vaieikas 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 (autva) 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 (autva) 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 Vai eikas have finally arrived to the conclusion that single atoms could not constitute the direct cause of the world. rdhara 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 (au) 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 Vaieikas 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. Thus, to overcome a discontinuity between atoms and macro-objects, between partless and divisible entities, the Vaieikas 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 ( sakhy) of the atoms

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece constitutive of it. As isolated atoms, according to Praastapda, 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 adas unseen positive (dharma) or negative (adharma) karmic forces produced by good or bad actions of living beings and accumulated in their souls (tman). As souls are eternal all-pervasive and immaterial substances, adas being their qualities (guas), are also a kind of omnipresent structural factors constitutive of the moral and spiritual state of our universe. It is due to the adas 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 Vai eikas answer is deistic the dyads are resulting out of Ivara's simultaneous cognition (apekabuddhi) of two atoms, triads - of three dyads. The role of vara, in the final analysis, is like that of Demiourgos in Platon's Timeus; as for the adas, 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 vara was necessary to justify this numerical scheme

of progressive complexification of

matter. Were there no dyads and triads, there would be no need for vara's apekabuddhi. The speculative character of the Vaieikas atomism was disputed even by their realistic allies the Mmskas 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

vara 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, vara 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 Vaieika authors seem to suggest a vyha loose or tight arrangement of the dyads, which, in its turn, is determined by the ada of the person making it. It is the ada or rather the adrias (in the plural) that play a role a teleological factor. rdhara argues: Though the atoms [of earth] have no species, nevertheless as far as their arrangement (vyha) is determined by the force of the adas, 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 adaxlvi.

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece 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 (dvyauka and tryauka). Depending of their vyha these compounds become constitutive parts of sugar or other particular things. But, as we saw, according to rdhara, this vyha is the result of a certain ada. Thus, the structure of things created on this earth by human agents seems to depend on their unseen karmic potentials. How could the ada which is a quality of tman have something in common with the production of sugar or any other thing? As I mentioned before, for the Vai eikas, souls are allpervasive 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 tmans are deprived of consciousness, though they still continue to be a support of the adas 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 adas, 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 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 Vaieika atomism, in a greater degree than the Greek one, may serve (owing to its concept of ada) 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.

i ii

Thomas Mann. The Magic Mountain, in Collected Work, Alfred A. Knopf, 1927, vol. 1, p. 359. 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 Nyya and Vaieika 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. Some new data and hypothesis are extensively discussed in: McEvilleys Shape of Ancient thought. Comparative

Chapter 11.Traditional Indian Xenology. SUNY Press, 1988, p. 172-196.

v

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 and H.
viii

For example, Vasubandhu in his Abhidharmakoabhya (Part III.Lokanirdea, kar. 85) states: Atom, phoneme

and moment are the limit [of division] of sensory matter (rpa), name and time.
ix

In the Riktantra (41), au is equivalent to the half of mtr and paramu to the interval between two varas

(phonemes). In the Vjasaneyi-prtikhya (1.59-61), au is 1/4 of mtr, while paramu 1/8 of mtr. In the Sabhuk, au is defined as imperceptible by senses, in the Lomaiik, au is compared with the mote in the sunbean. In A Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar ( Kainath Vasudev bhyankar, Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1961), au is defined as , , e the mtr.
x

Jan Houben in his paper Bhatharis Familiarity with Jainism, refers to Sryanryanna ukla, Gaurinath stri and See, for example, J. Bronkhorst. Studies on Bhart ihari 5. Bhartihari and Vaieika. - Asiatische Studien/ tudes In language, paramu t as , au as

others (Annals BORI LXXXV 1994, p. 8-10).

xi

Asiatiques, 47.1, p. 86.

xii

. See Ui, Hakuju. Vaieika Philosophy according to the Daapadrthastra. Chinese text, English translation and notes. London, 1917.
xiii

I am not talking here about the Buddhist Abhidharmic and later Yogcra 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 AtomsAtoms for Words" (J.P Reding. Comparative Essays in Early Greek and Chinese Rational Thinking, Ashgate, 2004).
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 (viaya and viayin), space and time etc..
xvi

Atomism in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2 nd edition, ed. Donald M. Borchert, Macmillan, New York etc.,vol.1, p.

384.
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 BCEthat 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 Vai eika Philosophy of Number, in: Asiatische Studien/ tudes Asiatiques, XLVIII, 2, 1994, p. 781-806).
xviii

The Pratikhyas, the oldest phonetic texts dealing with the manner in which the Vedas are to be enunciated are Later, Bharthari (fifth century AD) in his concept of the sentence-meaning (Vkyapad ya, II,41-48), while

dated as early as 500 BCE.

xix

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 khaapaka (opinions about divisibility of sentence-meaning), some of which are presented as two different interpretations of the abdasaghta 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 P ini (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.
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 Dielss 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 PreSocratic 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 B 8.34-36) For thought and being are the same . (Ibid. B 3). See:

Truth,
xxiii

http://parmenides.com/about_parmenides/ParmenidesPoem.html?page=12. The most important source for Democrituss theory of knowledge is Sextus Empiricus (see According to the theory which was attributed to this jvika in the Buddhist Samaaphalasutta or in the Jaina

Diels etc. op. cit.)

xxiv

Straktga, 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 Abhidharmahdaya of Dharmari (2nd century AD), further developed in the Mahvibha and especially in works of Vasubandhu and Saghabhadra. The position of the SarvstivdaVaibhaika is systematically exposed by Vasubandhu in his Abhidharmakoabhya.
xxvi xxvii

Thus, an acid taste is composed of angular, small, thin atoms and a sweet taste of round, moderate-sized ones . This atomistic determinism has received an interesting development in the doctrines of Epicurus (341270 BCE)

and, especially, of the Latin poet Lucretius Carus (9655 BCE). Lucretius mentions the so called swerve of atoms, by which they shift by a minimal amount in their downward course ( De rerum natura 2.216293), 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 prattya samutpda is like the following: When this is, that is. From the arising of this The Jaina atomism is placed by Indian tradition as early as the six century BCE, some scholars date it by the first

comes the arising of that. When this isn't, that isn't. From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.
xxix

century BCE, other scholars hold that the jvika Pakuda Kaccyana 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 Platos idea of matter which sticks to a pure soul inevitably comes to mind (Cf. Republic X 611, McEvilly op.cit., p. 319. Some of these arguments will be referred to further on.
The Vaieikastras view the existence of atoms as a corollary of the world's existence; they list their properties, pointing

b-d).
xxxi xxxii

xxxiii

out that the properties of earth atoms can change if exposed to fire (plu-pka-vda), and so on it is an outline of the doctrine to be further elaborated in the commentaries. Praastapda uses atomistic principles to explain the emergence and destruction of the world; he dwells at length on plu-pka ('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 Praastapdabhya: Vyomaiivas (circa 948-972 AD) Vyomavat, rdharas (circa 950-1000) Nyyakandal and Udayanas (circa 1050-1100) Kiraval of the three commentaries it is rdharas being the most circumstantial presentation of the
xxxiv

Vaieikas atomistic theory.

History of

See my paper: The Atomistic Theory of Vai eika:

Problems of Interpretation. -

Indian Philosophy. A Russian Viewpoint . Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, (republication of the 1993) (in press).
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 Pra astapda. - Asiatische Studien/ tudes Asiatiques So, atoms of Leucippus and Democritus, unlike the Vai eika ones, have nothing in common with the sense-

LII/1/1998, pp. 85-116.

xxxvii

reactions produced by them: the taste is explained by the atoms 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.
xxxviii

This argument of the Nyya authors may be compared to the Zeno paradox of divisibility mentioned before. This proof of the existence of the atom reveals some stricken similarities with the argumentation in favor of

xxxix

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
xl

(Aristotle.

On

Generation

and

Corruption,

Part

II,

translated

by

H.

H.

Joachim

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/gener_corr.1.i.html). 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 param u (the atom)( Vrttika to the NS 4.2.16).
xli

Uddyotakara refers to Vasubandhus Vimatikavtti. [Objection] [An atom must be composed of parts], also because the conjunction [of one atom with other atoms] is

xlii

possible. //NS 4.2.24// (Nyya philosophy. Literal translation Gautama's Nyyastra and Vtsyyana's Bhya. Part IV. Tr. M.Gangopadhyaya, Calcutta, 1976).
xliii

The Nyya-stras of Gautama : with the Bhya of Vtsyyana and the Vrttika of Uddyotakara . Volume IV. /

translated into English, with notes from V chaspati Mira's 'Nyya-vrttika-ttparyak;', Udayana's 'Pariuddhi', and Raghuttama's Bhsyachandra, by Ganganatha Jha/, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi etc., p. 1616.
xliv

In Aristotles 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.).
xlv

The same perceptible image of atom was proposed by Greek atomists, according to Aristotle (Aristotle. On Soul I, 2). Praastapdabhyam with the Commentary Nyyakandal of rdhara. Ed. by Vindhyesvan Prasad Dvivedin.

xlvi

India: ri Satguru Publications, 1895 (reprint 1984), p.31; Padrthadharmasagraha of Praastapda. Transl. into English by G.Jha. CO 4. DelhiVaranasi (reprint from Pandit 19031915), 1982, p.75.

xlvii

About the connection of the Vaieika 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.