Founder of the Vaisheshika school of philosophy, and the first in the tradition to propose that matter is built from indivisible, indestructible particles — anu, roughly 'atom.'
लगभग ६ठी शताब्दी ई.पू. · circa 6th century BCE
Little is recorded of Kanada's life beyond legend, including a tale that he formed his theory while sifting grain and noticing it could be divided only so far before reaching a smallest possible unit — giving him his name, 'grain-eater' or 'atom-eater.'
His Vaisheshika Sutra laid out a systematic physics and metaphysics built on categories of substance, quality, and action, treating the material world as combinations of indivisible atoms of earth, water, fire, and air — a strikingly early parallel to atomic theory, developed independently of similar ideas in ancient Greece.