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[Patrick Olivelle]

Then, I see the ad hominem uses of nāstika in many texts -- much like our "atheist"; it does not say much about the belief system of the target, just that the target is intensely disliked by the people throwing the epithet at it. I like Matthew's "nay-sayers"!!

Patrick



On Dec 18, 2013, at 10:39 AM, Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu> wrote:

> But, Joseph,
> 
> "The Nastika is one who denies the existence of karma and the efficacy of yajna and hotara"
> surely implies that Buddhists were nāstika-s in the sense that they did deny the efficacy of the
> Vedic sacrificial cult.
> 
> As i recall, however, Kamalaśīla, in the TSP, does take the Buddhists and Brahmanical traditions
> to be both āstika-s in that they both affirm the doctrines of karma and mokṣa.
> 
> I find it easier to make sense of these shifting uses of āstika and nāstika if we understand the terms not
> as fixed categories of types of believers, but in their literal sense as meaning "yeah-sayers" and "nay-sayers".
> The precise usage may then be allowed to shift according to just what the yeah or nay are about in
> any given context. Of course, a more or less fixed use did set in, but as you've all rightly suggested,
> this was a relatively late development.
> 
> best,
> Matthew
> 
> 
> Matthew Kapstein
> Directeur d'études,
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
> 
> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
> The University of Chicago
> 
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