The list covers all sorts of people who are also condemned in the brahmanical Dharmaśāstras.Ī similar list of ‘false views,’ this time from the Buddhist point of view, is found in ‘The Sixty-two Kinds of Wrong Views,’ in the ‘Perfect Net Sutta,’ Long Discourses (‘Brahamajāla Sutta’, Dīgha Nikāya 1.1). Tsuji says: ‘Can one find, for instance, in any great Upaniṣad such an unreserved attack on false doctrines, including most probably Buddhism, as in the Maitrāyanīya Upaniṣad 7:8-10?’ (qtd.
At the same time, members of some professional groups, such as dancers and actors (naṭa…raṅgāvatāriṇa), employees engaged in king’s business (rājakarmaṇi), that is, government servants (or those degraded to royal service), are also included for no obvious reasons. The list includes Buddhism (kaṣāya-kuṇḍalina), śakti-worship (kāpālina), cults around popular beliefs in ghosts and goblins and other supernatural evil beings (yakṣa-rākṣasa-bhūta-gaṇa-piśāca, etc.). Several heretical doctrines advocated by their followers are mentioned. Here is a rich field for the study of heresiology from the brahmanical point of view. The MaiUp (7.8) offers an interesting record of what is meant by non-vedic. This is the first indication of a division made between two traditions – Vedic and non-/anti-Vedic. Another word, unique in the whole of Upaniṣadic literature, is avaidika, ‘non-vedic,’ occurring in the same work (7.10).
Nāstikya appears only once in the late Maitrāyanīya Upaniṣad (MaiUp) 3.5. These words do not occur in the Vedic Saṃhitās.
The words, āstika and nāstika, and their derivatives and cognates are often used for the philosophical systems in India.