Pakudha Kaccayana

The seven

The doctrine attributed to him posits seven bodies or substances that are uncreated, unproduced, barren, stable as a mountain-peak, and incapable of acting on one another: earth, water, fire, air, pleasure, pain and the soul.

Since these are eternal and unmodifiable, nothing genuinely changes. The consequence he is reported to have drawn is that when a sword passes through a head, no one kills anyone; the blade merely passes through the space between the elements.

Assessment

The position is a form of atomistic eternalism, and it has structural similarities to later Vaisheshika, which also posits eternal substances, and to Jain ontology, which treats soul and matter as eternal. Its distinguishing move is the denial of real interaction, which is what generates the moral conclusion.

The Buddhist sources report it alongside Purana Kassapa's non-action doctrine as one of the positions that empties moral effort, and their interest in it is chiefly as a foil.

Sources

As with all six teachers, the account comes from the Samannaphala Sutta and its parallels, composed by opponents. What can reasonably be inferred is that a doctrine of eternal irreducible substances was in circulation in the Gangetic plain in this period, and that it was worked out far enough for its ethical consequences to be drawn and argued over.