This is an edited version of the 2008 M.V. Ramamurthy Memorial Humanist Lecture organised by the Malladi Subbamma Foundation in cooperation with IHEU’s Babu Gogineni. It was held in February at the Telugu University in Andhra Pradesh. Attended this year by the Vice Chancellor of Telugu University Dr. Avula Manjulatha, and IHEU Vice President Jack Jeffery, the lecture is an important contribution to the intellectual life of India. This lecture reflects on India’s glorious Humanist tradition of the past – however much it may be eclipsed by contemporary developments and trends.

There is a general impression that Indian tradition, and especially ancient tradition, is theistic. But when we examine our history we find that the reality is quite different.

Ancient Indian philosophy is broadly divided into the Orthodox and the Heterodox. Those who accept the Vedas are the orthodox schools and those who reject the Vedas as the sacred and supreme authority are the heterodox.

There are three Heterodox schools: The Charvakas, the Jains and the Bauddhas. They all reject God. Of the six orthodox schools, three - the Samkhya, the earlier Vaisheshikas and the Poorva-Meemama - reject God. Thus of the nine ancient Indian philosophical schools six reject God. And even the three which accepted God do not give him the hallowed place we find him given at present.

God is supposed to be a spiritual being, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, the creator-sustainer-destroyer of the world, and is a kindly person who supervises the doings of human beings, dispenses justice, forgives sins and is pleased by the devotions of his devotees. He normally lives in heaven in joy, pomp and luxury, is perfect, and runs to save his devotees in their dire need. His ways are mysterious and when annoyed he will also punish the defaulters.

Let us now see what the various schools say regarding God. We will note just one characteristic argument from each school, although all of them share many points in common. We must keep in mind, however, that even some of the ancient atheist schools of philosophy were neither rationalist nor Humanist in the present sense of these terms.

Rationalism and Humanism, except for study, cannot be separated in reality. Rationalism is that attitude of mind which wants to obtain true knowledge of reality while Humanism is concerned more with the bringing about of a human society that would be harmonious, happy, egalitarian, just and progressive. It tries to foster in society the various Humanist values like democracy, knowledge, social justice, purity of means, affection, joy, and so on. There is a distinction between Humanism and humanitarianism. Humanists reject everything supernatural, accepting only this world as real, consider man to be the measure of all things and the welfare of mankind as the central aim. Humanism is an august structure built upon the foundation provided by rationalism.

Rationalism is an empirical and scientific outlook. It is logical, is always open to correction, addition and improvement, and denies there being at any time any last word in human knowledge. Hence, it is in perpetual search for new horizons, is critical in its approach, is considerate in its nature, is global in its outlook and is always ready to learn. The more rational the person, the more moral he automatically is. His concerns and objectives are of a mundane type, realisable and beneficial in nature. Rationalism gives man eyes and hence guides him continuously on his path through life. Rationalist goals are expected to be realistic, impersonal, compassionate, long-lasting, enriching, joyful and liberating in spirit. The benefits are here in this world, in this life and also infinite in nature. The attempt is to learn from experience and try to make each day better than the previous one. Now let us evaluate the ancient Indian concept of atheism from this perspective.

We have already referred to the fact that the ancient schools either accepted or rejected the concept of God. The grounds offered for this are both quite interesting and intelligent.

Jains: Rejecting the Necessity of God
The Jains reject the necessity of God to attain self-purification and liberation - meaning that this is to be attained through self-effort. The twenty four Tirthankars, whose idols are enthusiastically worshipped, are not the gods that we have referred to earlier. They are only ideal human beings whose guidance we may take. The Jains are vociferous deniers of God. They fail to understand the propriety of a perfect God creating the world at all. A perfect God can have no desires or motives, even good ones, to be fulfilled. Perfection and action cannot go together. The stalwart Jain scholar, Gunaratna, even ridicules God for creating the atheists - like the Jains - in their millions. The Jains do not accept the Vedas. Hence, the words of the Vedas are not for them proof of God’s existence. Perception does not show God. And if God is inferred as the creator of the world, then surely, the Jains reason, not one but many Gods must have been necessary; a position the theists do not accept.

Poorva Meemamsakas: Rejecting the Divinity of the Vedas
The Poorva-meemamsakas are the most enthusiastic upholders of the Vedas. But they do not consider the Vedas to be the revealed words of God. The Vedas, according to them, are the creation of wise men of the past. The various deities referred to in the Vedas are merely natural elements, not supernatural in nature. The Meemamaskas insist upon the literal carrying out of the various rituals prescribed by the Vedas. This will generate pleasure for oneself (abhyudaya) and also for society (nihshreyasa). The fate generated by the deeds of the individuals works on its own, not needing the supervision of God. The Meemamsakas also argue that the prescribed Vedic rituals can be performed daily, occasionally or to fulfil some specific individual need. All this is rigid, technical, costly and laborious. They fear that if God is granted, then devotion to God is far easier than observing the prescribed Vedic rituals. So to avoid this possibility they reject the very concept of God.

Vaisheshikas: God, Not Worthy of Knowledge
The Vaisheshikas also reject God and consider only seven types of objects as worthy of knowledge; substances, qualities, actions, universals, specialties, conjunction, inherence and non-existence. God has no place in the epistemology of the Vaisheshikas. If God is supposed to be beyond space and time and is also beyond all relations, it is then for the theists to explain to us how they have found such a God to exist and functioning in a useful way.

Naiyayikas: A Marginal Role for God
Paired with the Vaisheshikas are the Naiyayikas who accept God’s existence - but in many other matters their views are common with those of the Vaisheshikas. But even the Naiyayikas have given a marginal role to God. They argue that just as a weaver is necessary to produce cloth from the already existing yarn so also God is necessary to produce the world from the existing atoms of various elements. That is all. How very marginal is the role of God as far as man is concerned!

While the Vaisheshikas explain the formation of the world on the basis of the various inherent tendencies existing in the atoms of the different elements, the Naiyayika God faces a very perplexing situation.

God is like soul, and is spiritual in nature, but the soul is not always conscious. It can be conscious through its sense organs when embodied. But during the condition of liberation the soul has no body and hence cannot be conscious of anything - it cannot even be self-conscious. (Devotional Vedantins ridicule such a poor concept of Naiyayika liberation). So much for the soul, but what about God? The soul has at least a body during its bondage and is at that time conscious of numerous objects and suffers and even enjoys life on various counts. But what about God? He never has a body and hence cannot be conscious at any time. Is not such a God more to be sympathised with than to be an ideal to be realised?

Samkhya: The world can be explained better without a God
The Samkhya school is one of the most ancient schools of Indian philosophy and the sage Kapila is believed to have sponsored it. It is a dualist philosophy positing matter (Parkriti) and the spiritual souls (Purusha) as the primordial substances constituting the whole world. The Samkhyas do not accept God and explain that the unconscious matter produces the various bodily organs and worldly objects for the benefit of the conscious but ignorant soul. When the soul achieves enlightenment Prakriti withdraws into its primordial condition setting the soul free from all material entanglements. God has no role to play in this show.

The sage Kapila found the concept of God to be self-contradictory: God is considered to be infinite, and yet a person; he is supposed to be just and yet can be placated by devotions; God is everywhere and yet lives in Heaven; God is perfect and yet created this world for we know not what purpose! God is omnipotent and kind and yet we find more evil in this world; naturally this is all inexplicable. Moreover, there is no proof establishing the existence of God. Perception does not show God. From natural premises we cannot establish a supernatural entity called God. Proving God on the basis of scriptural testimony involves a circular argument. We are asked to accept God because what the scriptures say is trustworthy and the scriptures are trustworthy because they are the words of God. Quite apart from these difficulties the Samkhya scholars feel that the world can be explained better without God than with the help of God.

But there is one difficulty that the Samkhya scholars cannot explain. Prakriti, matter, being unconscious, cannot know when the Purusha is ignorant and so entice him through evolution, and when the Purusha is enlightened and thus to withdraw the evolution. Here, the sage Patanjali of Yoga steps in and argues that all this happens on the orders of God. But God has no other role to play in the rest of the world’s doings. What a pity that God has nothing to do!

Uttara Meemamsa or Advaita Vedanta: Infallibility of Vedas
Lastly, we come to the Uttara Meemamsa or the Advaita Vedanta of Shankaracharya. But God gets no permanent and satisfactory patronage even here. Shankaracharya is a firm believer in the infallibility of the Vedic tradition interpreted in his own fashion. Nevertheless, the entire world seems to believe that Indian philosophy is mainly an Advaita Vedanta philosophy.

Unfortunately, the world does not scrutinize this philosophy minutely. It would be bitterly disappointed if it did so because this philosophy believes that the ultimate reality is Brahman, absolutely real, impersonal consciousness: eternal, pure and free. Brahman is one without a second, and has no divisions internal or external. But due to primordial ignorance it comes to wrongly believe itself to be many, finite, ignorant, mortal and miserable. This is only a temporary and empirical state. This delusion must be removed. Knowledge of one’s own real nature must be realised. The soul must realise that it is the very Brahman and nothing else. For the realisation of this self-knowledge, the impersonal Brahman may be taken to be God as a person and be worshipped and so on. But ultimately speaking, God must be transcended. God is the temporary creation of human ignorance. I do not know how far the devotees of God accept this concept of a temporarily existing God, a creation of ignorant human beings.

From the above overview of the various schools of philosophy, whether theists or atheists, heterodox or orthodox, we find that they are neither completely rationalist nor Humanist. They all accept the scriptures as the final authority, while the Jains have Agamas as their scriptures. Secondly, all the above schools accept the existence of a spiritual soul in us, immortal and so on. Evidently they all accept rebirth of the persons, fate, heaven and hell and so on. They all wish to transcend this world considered only as a temporary abode of the souls. There are moral injunctions but there is no socialisation of the individual. Spiritual liberation is given the top priority. Society and the world are to be discarded as evil.

The Charvakas and the Bauddhas
The two remaining schools of ancient Indian philosophy are the Charvakas and the Bauddhas. Unfortunately the Charvakas, also called the Lokayatas, do not exist anymore in India, while Buddhism has also almost vanished from India. Both these schools received varying treatments from the then orthodox society.

While the Buddha (and even his heterodoxy) was revered and accepted by society, the Chavakas were condemned and hounded out as heretics and immoral devils. Their literature was destroyed. Whatever we learn about them is just their caricature by the orthodox schools: that it is a philosophy teaching materialism, selfishness and pursuit of sexual pleasure at any cost, i.e., by fair means or foul. All this is a misrepresentation of their case. Let us first see the Charvakas and their own genuine case.

Charvakas, the Wise Atheists
The Charvakas were so called because of their pleasant talk. They advocated pursuit of pleasure as a philosophy of life. They accepted only perception as a source of true knowledge. Perception finds only four natural elements and their products as existing: earth, water, air and fire. Sky or the empty space cannot be perceived. The Charvakas accept only that type of inference which is limited to this world and consider that inference to be illegitimate which tries to establish supernatural entities like God, the soul, immortality, heaven and hell, rebirth and fate. They insist upon the perceptual verification of the conclusions of every inference. As a result, they are materialists, naturalists, pragmatists and hedonists. Obviously, they do not accept the existence of a God, or that of a spiritual type of immortal unchanging soul, nor rebirth, fate, heaven-hell and so on. Consciousness for them is a temporary product of a peculiar mixture of initially unconscious elements. We have only the present life to make the best use of it. Why not enjoy to the best one can!! The religious rituals, including the sacrifices, are a waste of time, money, material and human efforts. They are a clever trap by the wily priests to do nothing worthwhile but continue to be paid and fed by the wealth-producers and all this is to go for all time and for the whole priestly caste.

Very often the priests would sacrifice an animal, to great rejoicing. It was argued that no cruelty was involved because the animal thus killed was done a favour since it went straight to heaven. But the Charvakas ask: why then not sacrifice one’s own dear relative so that he attains heaven instantly? But the selfish priests will not do it.

Vilification of the Charvakas
Much vilification has been heaped upon the hedonism of the Charvakas. It is alleged that they would borrow money with no intention to repay; that one need not return a debt, that one could keep borrowing and if people in one village start demanding their money, they could go to some other village and start fooling the people there. But did they really say that?

Not much is known about what the Charvakas themselves said about such a philosophy of life based upon fraud; all that is known is the caricatures of the orthodox. Can any sane person and of all the persons, the wise ancient sage Brihaspati, preach a philosophy of life based purely upon everyone trying to fool everyone else? Since everyone then is aware that the others are fooling them, no-one will trust anyone and the fooling would cease. A more convincing interpretation of borrowing and enjoying could be the following: surely one should avoid borrowing. But some times it becomes unavoidable as, for example, for manure for one’s farm, for medical treatment for a dear relative, or for repairing one’s own house and so on. And then it is better to return the debt. There is a positive interpretation of borrowing. During the time of Brihaspati, the sponsoring sage of this philosophy, people used to perform sacrifices on every conceivable occasion; life itself was considered a great sacrifice. People borrowed money and performed sacrifices to earn merit. Brihaspati, wanted to stop this colossal waste: literally throwing costly and nutritious material in the sacrificial fire. Hence he asked people as far as possible not to borrow. But he considered it wiser to even have a hearty meal but not throw into a sacrificial fire the nutritious material purchased with the borrowed money. Brihaspati’s good intention is evident here since he did not exhort people to drink alcoholic intoxicants. He very correctly advised the people to better eat sumptuous meals rather than throwing edibles into fire.

But because the orthodox opposed to the Charvakas burnt their literature, not much that is constructive in their philosophy is available to us today. This deficiency is made good by the Buddha. Although the Buddha too denied the Vedas and the Upanishads, rejected God, soul, rebirth, heaven and hell and fate, and opposed animal sacrifices as cruel, opposed the caste-system and so on, yet his ways were so gentle, humble, rational and appealing that he did not incur any opposition even from the Vedic scholars. He also supplied a scholarly and Humanistic base to what he said. Because of his renunciation and personal charm he was welcomed everywhere.

Buddha’s Exhortation to Be Rational
He exhorted people to be rational, to be sensible and reasonable. He advised people to not waste time over distant matters like the origin and the end of the world, existence of God and an unchanging soul and so on, but to first attend to the immediate task of removing human misery. The Buddha found every existing thing to be changing and connected causally to its cause and with its surroundings. There is no unrelated entity existing in the world. The causal chain is without beginning and is without end. This chain of natural events cannot prove a supernatural God. Apart from the other arguments against God’s existence, his peculiar argument was the following. The usual experience is that the result is like its cause. Hence, he questions the theists as to how and why the products or creation of a perfect God are imperfect. The Buddha wanted the causal law to prevail and not the factious God’s questionable law. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan has even said that the Buddha wanted to save the people from the frightening moods of whimsical Gods.

The Buddha preached Dhamma, a rational morality, and did not start a new Dharma, a religion. The Dhamma is a rational morality preached by an enlightened human being to other human beings. As a rational person he did not claim himself to be the sole prophet giving the last word in wisdom. He himself declared that many Buddhas (enlightened persons) had been there before him and many more would be there in the future. The Dhamma preached by the Buddha, again, could be amended by the enlightened persons of future as and when found necessary.

Buddha’s nirvana, a state of no misery but full of joy is to be attained here in this world and while alive. His diagnosis of human misery was that it was a product of greed caused by ignorance. When the ignorance and greed will go, the misery too will disappear.

The Buddha was probably the first great Humanist. He rejected caste hierarchy. In his philosophy, there was no place for miracles. The enlightened person must be moral and work for the benefit of the whole of humanity. He must be a friend of every living being and must have compassion for them. No one can be happy in unhappy surroundings because every existent is related with its surroundings. As a result, the only realistic way for anyone to be happy is to make the others happy. Enlightenment, morality and joy are always only a social phenomenon.

The Present and the Future
Unfortunately for the rationalists and the Humanists, after the Buddha Buddhism became a religion, and it also lost the political patronage it enjoyed in the beginning. From the Middle Ages onward, Indian religion ceased to be the religion of the rulers. The Indian psyche became withdrawn and escapist in nature. Its focus became the golden past or liberation after death, somewhere else. Doubting and questioning the scriptures became a taboo. And this continues to be the case even to-day. The devotional schools have made the whole scene theistic through and through. This world is being neglected under the pretext that it is not really real. But we do find some bright spots for Humanism here and there.

Gora has said that every independent thinking is a sure sign of atheism. If we keep this scale to measure the presence of atheism existing any where we will find atheism to be increasing slowly although imperceptibly. The medieval saints like Kabir and others asked people to keep their eyes open and think critically. Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Jyotiba Phule and Narayana Guru carried the reformist zeal further. But what we actually need is not a submissive type of reformation but a bold intellectual revolution and renaissance. This we find coming up in the twentieth century in the form of persons like the Devatma, M.N. Roy, Periyar E.V., Ramasamay, Gora, Dr. Ambedkar, Jawahar Lal Nehru, the socialists and the Marxists and a host of others. People are yet to realize the advantages of atheism. If atheism reigns over the whole world, most of the tensions and wars and terrorism going on at present in the name of God and religion will vanish and a positivist breeze will start blowing. With the help of the present technology the unification of humanity as one family is likely to emerge.

We have to keep in mind M.N. Roy’s declaration that liberation from God is the beginning of all other liberations. Atheism does not simply mean denying God. It means rather the realization by man of his freedom, self-confidence and responsibility for whatever is in the world. With the help of God ancient men fought against the forces of nature. But that battle is now over. Yet God is continuing. Today, in the name of God, humans fight each other. This must stop. We must devote ourselves to minimizing the human misery caused by want, illiteracy, over-population, pollution, inequalities, dictatorships, religious terrorism, ignorance and mistaken philosophies based upon social delusions of glory. We must also promote the Humanist values of freedom, equality, brotherhood, wealth, joy, enlightenment, moral involvement, social harmony, and compassion and love for all. Our resolve should be to make each day better than the last. With such efforts, maybe after a few thousand years, our life here will be even better than the fictitious heavens profusely described in the scriptures.

Prof. D.D. Bandiste, 86, is a distinguished Professor of Philosophy and a Vice President of the Rationalist Association of India. He was an important leader of the right-wing Hindu group, the RSS, having joined it as a youngster. However, he grew into a Humanist, rejected Hinduism and the fascist ideology of the RSS, and has been spreading Humanism and Rationalism for the past 50 years. He is the author of several important works including New Humanism and Humanist Thought in Contemporary India; The Ethics of Bertrand Russell; Manavendra Nath Roy; Subodh Samkhya Darshan; Humanist Values: A Source Book, A Manual of Philosophy of Science etc. He is currently completing a book on a rationalist assessment of the Buddha.