[5][6][7][4] His traditional name "Kaṇāda" means "atom eater",[8] and he is known for developing the foundations of an atomistic approach to physics and philosophy in the Sanskrit text Vaiśeṣika Sūtra.
[11][12] The school founded by Kaṇāda explains the creation and existence of the universe by proposing an atomistic theory, applying logic and realism, and is one of the earliest known systematic realist ontology in human history.
[13] Kaṇāda suggested that everything can be subdivided, but this subdivision cannot go on forever, and there must be smallest entities (paramanu) that cannot be divided, that are eternal, that aggregate in different ways to yield complex substances and bodies with unique identity, a process that involves heat, and this is the basis for all material existence.
[3][4][14] The Vaisheshika Sutras manuscript has survived into the modern era in multiple versions and the discovery of newer manuscripts in different parts of India by Thakur in 1957 and Jambuvijayaji in 1961, followed by critical edition studies, suggest that the text attributed to Kaṇāda was systematized and finalized sometime between 200 BCE and the start of the common era, with the possibility that its key doctrines may be much older.
[20][4][21] Multiple Hindu texts dated to the 1st and 2nd century CE, such as the Mahavibhas and Jnanaprasthana from the Kushan Empire, quote and comment on Kaṇāda's doctrines.
[20][note 1] Kaṇāda was influential in Indian philosophies appearing in various texts by dictators, philosophers, and more, such as Kashyapa, Uluka, Kananda, Kanabhuk among others.
[26] However, this was not unusual for his times since several major early versions of Hindu philosophies such as Samkhya, Nyaya, Mimamsa along with sub-schools of Yoga and Vedanta, as well as non-Vedic schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, were similarly non-theistic.
[27][28] Kaṇāda was among the sages of India who believed in man's potential to understand existence and reach moksha on his own, without God, a notion of ancient Indians summarized by Nietzsche as the belief that "with piety and knowledge of the Veda, nothing is impossible".
[26] The text states:[29] Several traits of substances (dravya) are given as colour, taste, smell, touch, number, size, the separate, coupling and uncoupling, priority and posterity, comprehension, pleasure and pain, attraction and revulsion, and wishes.
In the fifth chapter of Vaisheshika Sutra, Kaṇāda mentions various empirical observations and natural phenomena such as the falling of objects to the ground, rising of fire and heat upwards, the growth of grass upwards, the nature of rainfall and thunderstorms, the flow of liquids, the movement towards a magnet among many others, asks why these things happen, then attempts to integrate his observations with his theories on atoms, molecules, and their interaction.