Hindu atheism

Hindu atheism or non-theism, which is known as Nirīśvaravāda (Sanskrit: Sanskrit: निरीश्वर्वाद, romanized: nirīśvarvāda, lit. 'Argument against the existence of Ishvara') has been a historically propounded viewpoint in many of the Astika (Orthodox) streams of Hindu philosophy. Hindu spiritual atheists, agnostics or non-theists who affirm the sanctity of the Vedas and the concept of Brahman, as well as those who follow astika (orthodox) philosophies but reject personal god(s), are also called Dharmic atheists, Vedic atheists or Sanatani atheists.
In current Indian languages, such as Hindi or Bengali, āstika and its derivatives usually mean 'theist', and nāstika and its derivatives denote an 'atheist'; however, the two terms in ancient- and medieval-era Sanskrit literature do not refer to 'theism' or 'atheism'. In ancient India, astika meant those who affirmed the sanctity of the Vedas, atman and Brahman, while nastika, by contrast, are those who deny all the aforementioned definitions of āstika; they do not believe in the existence of self or Ishvara (God) and reject the sanctity of the Vedas.
Sometimes nastika philosophies are also considered as a part of Hindu philosophy because the word 'Hindu' is actually an exonym and historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent. Many scholars consider the Nāstika philosophies, i.e. the Indian 'Heterodox' Philosophies like Buddhism, Jainism and Charvaka, to be distinct schools of philosophies, while some others consider them parts of Hindu philosophy. Although Buddhism initially started as yet another school of Indian philosophy with neutral or undiscussed views of most other philosophies, its spread through the Silk Road during the rule of emperor Ashoka, eventually led to a religious kind of self-organisation with structure, rituals and practises.
There are six major orthodox (astika) schools of Hindu philosophy — Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta. Among them, Samkhya, Yoga and Mimamsa, while not rejecting either the Vedas or Brahman, typically reject a personal god, creator god, or a god with attributes.
Some schools of thought view the path of atheism as a valid one, but difficult to follow in matters of spirituality.
The Sanskrit term Āstika ("pious, believer") refers to the systems of thought which admit the validity of the Vedas. Sanskrit asti means "there is", and Āstika (per Pāṇini 4.2.60) derives from the verb, meaning "one who says 'asti'". Technically, in Hindu philosophy, the term Āstika refers only to affirming the Vedas, not a belief in the existence of a god.
However, even when philosophers professed allegiance to the Vedas, their allegiance did little to fetter the freedom of their speculative ventures. On the contrary, the acceptance of the authority of the Vedas was a convenient way for a philosopher's views to become acceptable to the orthodox, even if a thinker introduced a wholly new idea. Thus, the Vedas could be cited to corroborate a wide diversity of views; they were used by the Vaisheshika thinkers (i.e., those who believe in ultimate particulars, both individual souls and atoms) as much as by the non-dualist Advaita Vedanta philosophers.
The Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, deals with significant skepticism around the fundamental question of a divine creator and the createdness of the universe. It does not, in many instances, categorically accept the existence of a creator, or if it seemingly does so, it still remains skeptical about the capacity of such a god. Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) of the Rig Veda states:
The Brihadaranyaka, Isha, Mundaka (in which Brahman is everything and "no-thing") and especially the Chandogya Upanishads have also been interpreted as atheistic because of their stress on the subjective self. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (800 BCE), early arguments were made against the emphasis on a personal god.
Mimamsa is a realistic, pluralistic school of philosophy which was concerned with the exegesis of the Vedas. The core text of the school were the Purva Mimamsa Sutras of Jaimini (c. 200 BCE–200 CE). Mimamsa philosophers believed that the revelation of the Vedas was sacred, authorless (apaurusheyatva) and infallible, and that it was essential to preserve the sanctity of the Vedic ritual to maintain Dharma (cosmic order). As a consequence of the belief in sanctity of the ritual, Mimamsas rejected the notion of gods in any form. Later commentators of the Mimamsa sutras such as Prabhākara (c. 7th century CE) advanced arguments against the existence of a god. The early Mimamsa not only refused the idea of a deity, but said that human action itself was enough to create the necessary circumstances for the enjoyment of its fruits.
Samkhya is a strongly dualistic orthodox (Astika) school of Indian Hindu philosophy that's ambivalent about the concept of a god. The earliest surviving authoritative text on classical Samkhya philosophy is the Samkhyakarika (c. 350–450 CE) of Iśvarakṛṣṇa. The Samkhyakarika is silent on the issue of Isvara's (the creator god's) existence or nonexistence, although first millennium commentators, such as Gaudapada, understand the text as being compatible with some concept of a god. However, the Samkhya Sutra (14th c. CE) and its commentaries explicitly attempt to disprove a god's existence through reasoned argument.
Mimamsas argued that there was no need to postulate a maker for the world, just as there was no need for an author to compose the Vedas or a god to validate the rituals. They further thought that the gods named in the Vedas had no physical existence apart from the mantras that speak their names. In this regard, the power of the mantras was what was seen as the power of gods. Mimamsas reasoned that an incorporeal god could not author the Vedas, for he would not have the organs of speech to utter words. An embodied god could not author the Vedas either because such a god would be subject to the natural limitations of sensory knowledge and therefore, would not be able to produce supernatural revelations like the Vedas.
Samkhya gave the following arguments against the idea of an eternal, self-caused, creator god:
Therefore, Samkhya maintained not only that the various cosmological, ontological and teleological arguments could not prove god, but that god as normally understood—an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator who is free from suffering—cannot exist.
The Indian Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen, in an interview with Pranab Bardhan for the California Magazine published in the July–August 2006 edition by the University of California, Berkeley states:
A 2021 nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center found that 2% of the self-described Indian Hindus didn't believe in God, while 18% believe in God but "with less certainty".
A 2025 study by the Pew Research Center found that 15% of the self-described American Hindus "don't believe in God or a universal spirit and they are certain in this belief".