The nāstika schools — Cārvāka, Buddhism, Jainism

Nāstika does not mean atheist — several orthodox schools are non-theistic. It means a school that does not accept the Veda as a valid means of knowledge. Three are counted: Cārvāka, Buddhism and Jainism.

Cārvāka / Lokāyata

Thoroughgoing materialism. Perception alone is a valid means of knowledge; inference is unreliable because the invariable relation it depends on can itself only be established by inference. Consciousness is a product of the elements, as intoxicating power arises from the combination of ingredients that separately have none. There is no soul, no rebirth, no afterlife, and no merit in sacrifice. Pleasure is the reasonable aim of life.

Buddhism

The Buddha accepted karma and rebirth and rejected both the Vedic sacrifice and the permanent self. Its central positions — impermanence, suffering, non-self, dependent origination, the four noble truths and the eightfold path — were argued against the orthodox schools for a thousand years in a debate that improved both sides. Nāgārjuna's dialectic and the Yogācāra analysis of consciousness forced Nyāya and Vedānta to sharpen their own positions, and Śaṅkara's Advaita is unimaginable without that pressure.

Jainism

Jainism accepts an eternal, individual soul and a rigorous doctrine of karma as a subtle material substance that adheres to it. Its distinctive contributions are anekāntavāda — the many-sidedness of reality, the doctrine that any single statement captures only one aspect — and the most uncompromising ahiṁsā in any tradition. Its influence on the wider Indian world, especially on vegetarianism and on the practice of non-violence, is out of all proportion to its numbers.

॥ ❖ ॥

Last revised 2026-08-16. Corrections are welcome — see how this site is written.