Ateism in traditia indica

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adevism

Adevism (from the Sanskrit term deva, on the analogy of atheism) is a term introduced by Friedrich Max Müller to imply the denial of gods: in particular, the legendary gods of Hinduism. Müller used it in the Gifford Lectures in connection with the Vedanta philosophy, for the correlative of ignorance or nescience. In modern contexts it is rarely found, though it is sometimes used to represent a disbelief in any gods, contrasted with a specific disbelief in the Judaeo-Christian God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism

The Sanskrit term Āstika ("pious, orthodox") is sometimes translated as "theist" and Nāstika as "atheist". [...] In Indian philosophy, three schools of thought are commonly referred to as nastika: Jainism, Buddhism and Cārvāka for rejecting the doctrine of Vedas. In this usage, nastika refers to the non-belief of Vedas rather than non-belief of God. However, all these schools also rejected a notion of a creationist god and so the word nastika became strongly associated with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_secularism

The Hindi word that is commonly used for "secularism" in India is dharmanirapekshata (धर्मनिरपेक्षता) and means "indifference towards religion". The usage itself denotes the understanding of secularism as more a policy of political practice than a philosophy in itself. The other Sanskrit word that is used for it is dharmanirapekshavada (धर्मनिरपेक्षवाद) where the suffix vada is the same as ism and denotes the philosophical aspect of secularism. [...]

The Preamble of the Constitution of India declares that India is a secular state.[...]

The history of Indian secularism has roots in the protest movements in the 5th century B.C. The three main protest movements were by the Charvakas (a secularistic and materialistic philosophical movement), Buddhism, and Jainism. All three of them rejected the authority of the Vedas and any importance of belief in a deity.

However, it was in the 18th century, when the British East India Company began to gain total control over India that ideas of secularism began to have impact on the Indian mind. Until then, religion was considered to be inseparable from political and social life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka

Cārvāka (Sanskrit: चार्वाक) is a system of Indian philosophy that assumes various forms of philosophical skepticism and religious indifference. It is also known as Lokāyata[...] It is characterized as a materialistic and atheistic school of thought. While this branch of Indian philosophy is not considered to be part of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, it is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement within Hinduism.[...]

The Cārvāka school of philosophy had a variety of atheistic and naturalistic beliefs:

1.No life after death - The Carvaka believed there was no afterlife, no life after death
2. Naturalism - The Carvaka believed in a form of naturalism, that is that all things happen by nature, and come from nature (not from any deity or Supreme Being).
3. Sensual Indulgence - Unlike many of the Indian philosophies of the time, The Carvaka believed there was nothing wrong with sensual indulgence, and that it was the only enjoyment to be pursued.
4. Religion is invented by man - The Carvaka believed that religion was invented and made up by men. Those parts [of Madhavacharya's famous work, The Sarva-darsana-sangraha] which survive indicate a strong anti-clerical bias, accusing Brahmins of fostering religious beliefs only so they could obtain a livelihood.

Cārvākas cultivated a philosophy wherein theology and what they called "speculative metaphysics" were to be avoided. The Cārvākas accepted direct perception as the surest method to prove the truth of anything.[...] Temperance - the enjoyment of life's pleasures in a moderate manner, rather than total abstinence - was the Cārvākas' primary modus operandi. In this respect, they much resemble the Epicureans of Greece .

Rejection of the soul as separate from the body led the Cārvākas to confine their thinking to this world only. This does not mean that they denied the cause-effect relationship. They accepted the "like causes like result" (Karmavipaaka) rule, restricted it to this life and this world and admitted exceptions to that rule.

Whereas most systems of Astika philosophy advocated a caste system, the Cārvākas denounced the caste system, calling it artificial, unreal and hence unacceptable.[...]

"It may be said from the available material that Cārvākas hold truth, integrity, consistency, and freedom of thought in the highest esteem."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism#Hindu_atheists_in_recent_times
The Indian Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen, in an interview with Pranab Bardhan for the California Magazine published in the July-August 2006 edition by the University of California, Berkeley states:

“In some ways people had got used to the idea that India was spiritual and religion-oriented. That gave a leg up to the religious interpretation of India, despite the fact that Sanskrit had a larger atheistic literature than what exists in any other classical language. Even within the Hindu tradition, there are many people who were atheist. Madhava Acharya, the remarkable 14th century philosopher, wrote this rather great book called Sarvadarshansamgraha, which discussed all the religious schools of thought within the Hindu structure. The first chapter is "Atheism" - a very strong presentation of the argument in favor of atheism and materialism.”