The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c9.2

c9.2

This is not to deny that the terms *nāstika* and *nāstikya* can and do denote a particular teaching, or rather a variety of different teachings, which, for short, may be called materialist. What I want to draw attention to is that these cover on the one hand specific doctrines, on the other hand a role, a party in the game of disputation free from any specific doctrinal content, both parties being bound by the rules of the game that unites them, not by any doctrine that separates them.