Charvaka
Charvaka, also known as Lokāyata, is an ancient Indian school of materialism. It is an example of the atheistic schools in the Ancient Indian philosophies. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge, embraces philosophical skepticism, and rejects ritualism. In other words, the Charvaka epistemology states that whenever one infers a truth from a set of observations or truths, one must acknowledge doubt; inferred knowledge is conditional.
It was a well-attested belief system in ancient India. Brihaspati, a philosopher, is traditionally referred to as the founder of Charvaka or Lokāyata philosophy, although some scholars dispute this. Charvaka developed during the Hindu reformation period in the first millennium BCE and is considered a philosophical predecessor to subsequent or contemporaneous heterodox philosophies such as Ajñāna, Ājīvika, Jainism, and Buddhism. Its teachings have been compiled from historic secondary literature such as those found in the shastras, sutras, and Indian epic poetry.
Charvaka is categorized as one of the nāstika or "heterodox" schools of Indian philosophy.
Etymology and meaning
The etymology of Charvaka is uncertain. Bhattacharya quotes the grammarian Hemacandra, to the effect that the word cārvāka is derived from the root, 'to chew' : "A Cārvāka chews the self. Hemacandra refers to his own grammatical work, Uṇādisūtra 37, which runs as follows: mavāka-śyāmāka-vārtāka-jyontāka-gūvāka-bhadrākādayaḥ. Each of these words ends with the āka suffix and is formed irregularly." This may also allude to the philosophy's hedonistic precepts of "eat, drink, and be merry".Others believe it to mean "agreeable speech" or pejoratively, "sweet-tongued", from Sanskrit's "agreeable" and "speech". Yet another hypothesis is that it is eponymous, with the founder of the school being Charvaka, a disciple of Brihaspati.
As Lokayata
According to claims of Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, the traditional name of Charvaka is Lokayata. It was called Lokayata because it was prevalent among the people, and meant the world-outlook of the people. The dictionary meaning of Lokāyata signifies "directed towards, aiming at the world, worldly".In early to mid 20th century literature, the etymology of Lokayata has been given different interpretations, in part because the primary sources are unavailable, and the meaning has been deduced from divergent secondary literature. The name Lokāyata, for example, is found in Chanakya's Arthashastra, which refers to three ānvīkṣikīs – Yoga, Samkhya and Lokāyata. However, Lokāyata in the Arthashastra is not anti-Vedic, but implies Lokāyata to be a part of Vedic lore. Lokāyata here refers to logic or science of debate. Rudolf Franke translated Lokayata in German as "logisch beweisende Naturerklärung", that is "logically proving explanation of nature".
In 8th century CE Jaina literature, Saddarsanasamuccaya by Haribhadra, Lokayata is stated to be the Hindu school where there is "no God, no samsara, no karma, no duty, no fruits of merit, no sin."
The Buddhist Sanskrit work Divyavadana mentions Lokayata, where it is listed among subjects of study, and with the sense of "technical logical science". Shantarakshita and Adi Shankara use the word lokayata to mean materialism, with the latter using the term Lokāyata, not Charvaka.
In Silāṅka's commentary on Sūtra-kṛtāṅgna, the oldest Jain Āgama Prakrt literature, he has used four terms for Cārvāka, namely, Bṛhaspatya Lokāyata Bhūtavādin Vāmamārgin.
Origin
The tenets of the Charvaka atheistic doctrines can be traced to the relatively later composed layers of the Rigveda, while substantial discussions on the Charvaka is found in post-Vedic literature. The primary literature of Charvaka, such as the Brhaspati Sutra, is missing or lost. Its theories and development has been compiled from historic secondary literature such as those found in the shastras, sutras and the epics of Hinduism as well as from the dialogues of Gautama Buddha and Jain literature.In the oldest of the Upanishads, in chapter 2 of the Brhadāranyaka, the leading theorist Yājnavalkya states in a passage often referred to by the irreligious, "So I say, after death there is no awareness." This declaration arises in a discussion with his female philosophy interlocutor, Maitreyi, who notices that this might mean there is no afterlife – no religion: "After Yājñavalkya said this, Maitreyi exclaimed: 'Now, sir, you have totally confused me by saying 'after death there is no awareness'."
Substantial discussions about the Charvaka doctrines are found in texts during the 6th century BCE because of the emergence of competing philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. Bhattacharya posits that Charvaka may have been one of several atheistic, materialist schools that existed in ancient India during the 6th century BCE. Though there is evidence of its development in Vedic era, the Charvaka school of philosophy predated the Āstika schools as well as being a philosophical predecessor to subsequent or contemporaneous philosophies such as Ajñāna, Ājīvika, Jainism and Buddhism in the classical period of Indian philosophy.
The earliest Charvaka scholar in India whose texts still survive is Ajita Kesakambali. Although materialist schools existed before Charvaka, it was the only school which systematised materialist philosophy by setting them down in the form of aphorisms in the 6th century BCE. There was a base text, a collection sūtras or aphorisms and several commentaries were written to explicate the aphorisms. This should be seen in the wider context of the oral tradition of Indian philosophy. It was in the 6th century BCE onwards, with the emergent popularity of Buddhism, that ancient schools started codifying and writing down the details of their philosophy.
E. W. Hopkins, in his The Ethics of India, claims that Charvaka philosophy predated Jainism and Buddhism, mentioning "the old Cārvāka or materialist of the 6th century BC". Rhys Davids assumes that lokāyata in ca. the 5th century BC came to mean "skepticism" in general without yet being organised as a philosophical school. This proves that it had already existed for centuries and had become a generic term by 600 BCE. Its methodology of skepticism is included in the Ramayana, Ayodhya kanda, chapter 108, where Jabāli tries to persuade Rāma to accept the kingdom by using nāstika arguments :
There are alternate theories behind the origins of Charvaka. Bṛhaspati is sometimes referred to as the founder of Charvaka or Lokāyata philosophy, although other scholars dispute this. states that a philosopher named Charvaka lived in or about the 6th century BCE, who developed the premises of this Indian philosophy in the form of Brhaspati Sutra. These sutras predate 150 BCE, because they are mentioned in the Mahābhāṣya.
Arthur Llewellyn Basham, citing the Buddhist Samaññaphala Sutta, suggests six schools of heterodox, pre-Buddhist and pre-Jain, atheistic Indian traditions in 6th century BCE, that included Charvakas and Ajivikas. Charvaka was a living philosophy up to the 12th century in India's historical timeline, after which this system seems to have disappeared without leaving any trace.
Philosophy
The Charvaka school of philosophy had a variety of atheistic and materialistic beliefs. They held perception and direct experiences to be the only valid and reliable source of knowledge.Epistemology
The Charvaka epistemology holds perception as the primary and proper source of knowledge, while inference is held as prone to being either right or wrong and therefore conditional or invalid. Perceptions are of two types, for Charvaka, external and internal. External perception is described as that arising from the interaction of five senses and worldly objects, while internal perception is described by this school as that of inner sense, the mind. Inference is described as deriving a new conclusion and truth from one or more observations and previous truths. To Charvakas, inference is useful but prone to error, as inferred truths can never be without doubt. Inference is good and helpful, it is the validity of inference that is suspect – sometimes in certain cases and often in others. To the Charvakas there were no reliable means by which the efficacy of inference as a means of knowledge could be established.Charvaka's epistemological argument can be explained with the example of fire and smoke. Kamal states that when there is smoke, one's tendency may be to leap to the conclusion that it must be caused by fire. While this is often true, it need not be universally true, everywhere or all the times, stated the Charvaka scholars. Smoke can have other causes. In Charvaka epistemology, as long as the relation between two phenomena, or observation and truth, has not been proven as unconditional, it is an uncertain truth. In this Indian philosophy such a method of reasoning, that is jumping to conclusions or inference, is prone to flaw. Charvakas further state that full knowledge is reached when we know all observations, all premises and all conditions. But the absence of conditions, state Charvakas, can not be established beyond doubt by perception, as some conditions may be hidden or escape our ability to observe. They acknowledge that every person relies on inference in daily life, but to them if we act uncritically, we err. While our inferences sometimes are true and lead to successful action, it is also a fact that sometimes inference is wrong and leads to error. Truth then, state Charvaka, is not an unfailing character of inference, truth is merely an accident of inference, and one that is separable. We must be skeptics, question what we know by inference, question our epistemology.
This epistemological proposition of Charvakas was influential among various schools of Indian philosophies, by demonstrating a new way of thinking and re-evaluation of past doctrines. Hindu, Buddhist and Jain scholars extensively deployed Charvaka insights on inference in rational re-examination of their own theories.