Editorial Note: This excerpt on Ajita Keśakambalin is extracted from Chapter X (§ 5) of Volume 2 of S. K. Belvalkar and R. D. Ranade’s History of Indian Philosophy (1927). For a comprehensive view of how early heterodox speculation developed into a full philosophical system, read our complete compiled study: Materialism in Indian Philosophy.
Ajita Kesa-Kambalin and Early Materialism
In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta and elsewhere the following doctrine is ascribed to the philosopher Ajita, nicknamed1 “of the Hair-garment,” very probably because he and his followers affected that mode of dress —
“There is no such thing as alms or sacrifice or offering. There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds. There is no such thing as this world or the next. There is neither father nor mother, nor beings springing into life without them (opapātika). There are in the world no Recluses or Brahmins who have reached the highest point, who walk perfectly, and who, having understood and realised, by themselves alone, both this world and the next, make their wisdom known to others. A human being is built up of the four Elements. When he dies, the earthy in him returns and relapses to the earth, the fluid to the water, the heat to the fire, the windy to the air, and his indriyas or faculties pass into space. The four bearers, he on the bier as a fifth, take his dead body away. Till they reach the burning ground men utter forth eulogies: but there his bones are bleached, and his offerings end in ashes! It is a doctrine of fools, this talk of gifts. It is an empty lie, mere idle talk, when men say there is profit therein. Fools and wise alike, on the dissolution of the body, are cut off, are annihilated; and after death they are not.”
As is evident, this doctrine of Kesa-kambalin is a violent denunciation of both the Brāhmaṇic ritualism and the Upanishadic doctrine of the Ātman. With evident allusion to texts like Kaush. Up. iv. 19, or the anupraveśa texts from the Aitareya or Chhāndogya Upanishads, Ajita declares that nothing is real that is not corporeal: “As a man drawing a sword from the scabbard can say, ‘This is the sword and that is the scabbard,’ not so are we able to separate the soul from the body, pointing out, ‘this is the soul and that is the body.’” Ajita’s view comes nearest to the view of the Materialists like Chārvāka, whose (or whose teacher’s) obiter dicta are familiar to us in the opening pages of the Sarvadarśanasaṁgraha.
Notes & References
- 1 His opponents characterised his teaching also — like a hair-garment — as amongst the most disagreeable of things: cold in the cold weather, hot in the hot, and always unpleasant to touch.
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