ATOMIC THEORY BY ACHARYA KANADA

ATOMIC THEORY BY ACHARYA KANADA

Maharishi Kanada or Acharya Kanada, whose original name was Kashyap. He was born in 600 B.C. in Prabhas Kshetra near Dwarka, in present day Gujarat, Bharat. He was the son of a philosopher named Ulka.

He was the founder of Vaisheshika, which was one among six of those major schools of Ancient India. Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vedanta and Mimamsa were the other five major schools of Vedic Philosophy of ancient Bharat. These major schools of ancient India believe in the following criteria :

1) The valid source of knowledge is Vedas.

2)Brahman and souls.

3) Life after death and Devas.

Once in his childhood, Kashyap accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Prayaga. He saw that thousands of pilgrims in the town were littering the roads and bank of river Ganga with flowers and grains of the rice which the offered at the temple. Kashyap likes to know a minute detail of everything and even minute things attract his attention. He started collecting the grains of rice while everyone else was busy offering prayers or bathing in the river Ganga. At first, people thought him insane but as he was belonging to a well-to-do family crowd gathered around him wondering why was he acting so weird.

Suddenly, some people who were in suspense after watching this strange act by a well family boy asked him why he was collecting those grains of rice which even a beggar wouldn’t touch. Kashyap replied to them that it can be an individual or a single grain is worthless but a collection of hundreds of grains can make up a person’s meal. The collection of many meals can feed an entire family and finally mankind is made up of many families. And thus, the single grain is as important as all the valuables in the world. After this incident people started calling him kanada where “kan” is a Sanskrit word which translates to mean as smallest particle in Sanskrit.

Kanada was the first person in the world to discuss atoms and molecules. It was Kanad who first gave the theory that the anu (Atoms) was an indestructible particle of matter. This theory occurred to him while walking back to his home with the food in his hands. He nibbled the food and broke it into smaller particles and then further subdivided it into smaller particles until it cannot be divided anymore. Through this, he gave theory about the existence of the matter which cannot be further subdivided.

He called these indivisible matters “Anu” which literally means “Atom”. He also considered “Anu” or “Atom” as minute particles that are indestructible, eternal in nature and cannot be visible by the naked eye which comes into being and vanished in an instant. He authored the text “Vaisesika sutras” or Aphorisms, pioneering the atomic theory, describing dimension, motion, and chemical reactions of atoms.

Kanada’s Vaisheshika school deals with these things too and explained the creation and world’s existence by the atomic theory. He applied his logic and realism to draw the conclusions. Vaisheshika was one of the earliest systematic realist ontology in the world’s history.

Maharishi Kanada propounded seven categories (Padarthas) which are sufficient to describe the universe in every aspect of material things :

1) Dravyam (matter)

2) Guna (Quality)

3) Karma (Action)

4) Samanya (Generic Species)

5) Vishesha (Unique Trait)

6) Samavaya (Inherence or an integrated part of the whole), and

7) Abhava (Non- Existence)

Dravyam (matter) is again sub-divided into nine aspects :

1) Prithvi (Earth)

2) Jal (Water)

3) Tej (Light)

4) Vaayu (Air)

5) Aakash (Ether)

6) Disha ( Direction/ Space- Dimension)

7) Kaal (Time)

According to Maharishi Kanad’s Atomic Theory :

1) Everything can be sub-divided.

2) Over time, subdivision leads to the creation of anu (Atom), which are the smallest entities.

3) Anu is indivisible, it cannot be further divided. Thus, subdivision has an end.

4) Atom is eternal, i.e. indestructible.

5) It is the basis for all material existence having two states i.e. motion and rest.

6) Anu has unique identity with a specific property same as its class of substance.

7) it is invisible by the naked eye.

8) Atoms can be combined through various methods undergoing chemical changes.

“ If Kanada’s sutras are analyzed, one would find that his atomic theory was far more advanced than those forwarded later by the Greek philosophers, Leucippus and Democritus.

Between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, the atom is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 8, Verse 9). While Greeks came into India only in the 4th century B.C. Thus it is quite possible that the Greeks borrowed the ideas about atom from Indian philosophers in the 4th century B.C.