It has been claimed that Kashyapa, later known as
Kanada (
Sanskrit:
कणाद; also transliterated as
Canada as well as other forms) was a
Hindu sage and philosopher who founded the
philosophical school of
Vaisheshika.
[1] He talked of Dvyanuka (biatomic
molecule) and tryanuka (triatomic
molecule). He probably lived around the 2nd century BCE,
[2] while other sources claim he lived in the 6th Century BC.
[3] [4] It is believed that he was born in
Prabhas Kshetra (near
Dwaraka) in
Gujarat,
India.
His primary area of study was
Rasavādam, considered to be a type of
alchemy. He is said to have believed that all living beings are composed of five elements: water, fire, earth, air, ether. Vegetables have only water, insects have water and fire, birds have water, fire, earth and air, and Humans, the top of the creation, have ether - the sense of discrimination (time, space, mind) are one. He theorized that Gurutva was responsible for the falling of objects on the Earth.
Many believe that Kanada originated the concept of
atom. An interesting story states that this theory occurred to him while he was walking with food in his hand. As he nibbled at the food in his hand, throwing away the small particles, it occurred to him that he could not divide the food into further parts and thus the idea of a matter which cannot be divided further came into existence. He called that indivisible matter as ' Anu ' .i.e. atom.
Adherents of the school of philosophy founded by Kanada considered the
atom to be indestructible, and hence eternal. They believed atoms to be minute objects invisible to the naked eye which come into being and vanish in an instant. This Indian concept of the
atom was developed independently
[5] and possibly prior (depending on which dates one accepts for the life of Kanada) to the development of the idea in the Greco-Roman world. Indian theories about the
atom are greatly abstract and enmeshed in philosophy as they were based on logic and not on personal experience or experimentation. Thus the Indian theories lacked an empirical base, but in the words of A.L. Basham, the veteran Australian Indologist “they were brilliant imaginative explanations of the physical structure of the world, and in a large measure, agreed with the discoveries of modern physics.”
[6]
According to author Dilip M. Salwi, "if Kanada’s sutras are analysed, one would find that his atomic theory was far more advanced than those forwarded later by the Greek philosophers,
Leucippus and
Democritus."
[7]
