Concept

Āstika and nāstika

Overview

Āstika (Sanskrit: आस्तिक, IAST: āstika) and Nāstika (Sanskrit: नास्तिक, IAST: nāstika) are mutually exclusive terms that modern scholars use to classify the schools of Indian philosophy as well as some Hindu, Buddhist and Jain texts. The various definitions for āstika and nāstika philosophies have been disputed since ancient times, and there is no consensus. One standard distinction, as within ancient- and medieval-era Sanskrit philosophical literature, is that āstika schools accept the Vedas, the ancient texts of India, as fundamentally authoritative, while the nāstika schools do not. However, a separate way of distinguishing the two terms has evolved in current Indian languages like Telugu, Hindi and Bengali, wherein āstika and its derivatives usually mean 'theist', and nāstika and its derivatives denote 'atheism'.

Still, philosophical tradition maintains the earlier distinction, for example, in identifying the school of Sāṃkhya, which is non-theistic (as it does not explicitly affirm the existence of God in its classical formulation), as āstika (Veda-affirming) philosophy, though "God" is often used as an epithet for consciousness (purusha) within its doctrine. Similarly, though Buddhism is considered to be heterodox nāstika, Gautama Buddha is considered an avatar of the god Vishnu in some Hindu denominations. Due to its acceptance of the Vedas, āstika philosophy, in the original sense, is often equivalent to Hindu philosophy: philosophy that developed alongside the Hindu religion.

Āstika (Sanskrit: आस्तिक; from Sanskrit: asti, 'there is, there exists') means one who believes in the existence of a Self or Brahman, etc. It has been defined in one of three ways:

as those who accept the epistemic authority of the Vedas;

as those who accept the existence of ātman;

as those who accept the existence of Ishvara.

Nāstika (Sanskrit: नास्तिक; from Sanskrit: na, 'not' + āstika), by contrast, are those who deny all the respective definitions of āstika; they do not believe in the existence of Self.

The six most studied Āstika schools of Indian philosophies, sometimes referred to as orthodox schools, are Nyāyá, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta. The five most studied Nāstika schools of Indian philosophies, sometimes referred to as heterodox schools, are Buddhism, Jainism, Chārvāka, Ājīvika, and Ajñana. However, this orthodox-heterodox terminology is a construct of Western languages, and lacks scholarly roots in Sanskrit. Recent scholarly studies state that there have been various heresiological translations of Āstika and Nāstika in 20th century literature on Indian philosophies, but many are unsophisticated and flawed.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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But by sacred things one must not understand simply those personal beings which are called gods or spirits; a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred. A rite can have this character; in fact, the rite does not exist which does not have it to a certain degree. There are words, expressions and formulæ which can be pronounced only by the mouths of consecrated…
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
States what Āstika and nāstika is.
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2. _The Philosophy of Gotama and Canade_. The philosophy of Gotama and that of Canade belong to one another.[18] The philosophy of Gotama is called Nyaya (reasoning), and that of Canade, Vaiseshica (particular). The first is a specially perfect dialectic, and the second, on the other hand, occupies itself with physics, that is, with particular or sensuous objects. Colebrooke says:—“No department of science or of…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Āstika and nāstika is.
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Then change and motion begin and all this evolution goes on. This state of things is going on cyclically, periodically; that is to say, there is a period of disturbance of the balance, when all these forces begin to combine and recombine, and this universe is projected; and there is also a period when everything has a tendency to revert to the primal state of equilibrium, and the time comes when a total absence of…
Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II
States what Āstika and nāstika is.
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