Kanada

Vedic sage and founder of Deepak school of Hindu philosophy

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Lived -200–-160, aged 40India

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Era
-200–-160
Aged 40

Summary

Updated 2026-09-01

He named himself "eater of atoms" and argued, sometime between the 6th and 2nd centuries BCE, that matter must bottom out in smallest eternal units that cannot be divided further — one of the earliest systematic atomistic theories in human history.

Biography

About

Kaṇāda founded the Vaisheshika school of Indian philosophy, laying out his ideas in the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra. He proposed that everything can be subdivided only so far before reaching paramāṇu — indivisible, eternal particles that aggregate through heat to form all material existence. His system classified reality into six knowable categories: substance, quality, motion, generality, particularity, and inherence. He combined this atomistic framework with the concept of Atman to chart a non-theistic path to moksha. The school he built became closely tied to the Nyaya tradition and influenced thinkers…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Kanada

Kanada

saidundated

Two systems of Hindu thought propound physical theories suggestively similar to those of Greece.

— Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage : India and Her Neighbors.

Kanada

saidundated

As Gautama is the Aristotle of India, so Kanada is its Democritus.

— Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage : India and Her Neighbors.

Kanada

saidundated

The atomistic theory of matter appears in well established and elaborated form in various systems of Hindu philosophy... The oldest of these systems...

— John Maxson Stillman, The Story of Alchemy and Early Chemistry (1924)

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

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