Charvaka (Lokayata)

What defines it

1. 01

   Perception the only sure pramana

2. 02

   Doubt about vyapti, the basis of inference

3. 03

   Four elements; no akasha

4. 04

   Consciousness arises from the body and ends with it

5. 05

   No world beyond; the aim is happiness here

01Lokayata, the view of this world

Lokayata means what is current among people, or what is confined to this world. The school is traced to a teacher named Brihaspati, and the Barhaspatya Sutras once existed; only fragments survive, quoted by opponents. The other name, Charvaka, is explained in different ways, as the name of a teacher or as “sweet-tongued”. The Sarvadarshanasangraha of Madhava, written in the 14th century, gives the Charvaka view as the first of its sixteen schools, and Jain, Buddhist and Vedanta writers all summarise it. The only full work from a thinker linked with the school is the Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarashi Bhatta, in the 8th century, a sceptic’s attack on every pramana, perception included.

02Only perception

As its opponents report it, the school held that perception alone gives sure knowledge. Inference rests on vyapti, a universal rule such as “where there is smoke there is fire”, and the Charvaka asked how such a rule could ever be known: we never see all smoke and all fire, past and future. Reality is four elements, earth, water, fire and air; akasha, which cannot be perceived, is not counted. Consciousness arises when the elements combine into a living body, as the Sarvadarshanasangraha puts the analogy, like the power to intoxicate that appears when certain ingredients are mixed. When the body dies, consciousness ends. So there is no rebirth, no heaven, and no fruit of rites in another world, and the aim of life is happiness here.

03Why the others answered it

Every school of Bharat thought the Charvaka worth answering, which is a mark of how seriously the question was taken. Nyaya worked out its theory of how a vyapti is established, from repeated observation with no counter-instance and with attention to hidden conditions, largely to meet the Charvaka doubt. Udayana opened his Nyayakusumanjali by refuting the claim that there is no world beyond. Shankara, in his Brahma Sutra Bhashya (3.3.53–54), argued that the self is distinct from the body. The Jain and Buddhist schools, which also rejected the Veda, rejected the Charvaka too, because they held to karma and rebirth. In Krishna Mishra’s 11th-century allegorical play Prabodhachandrodaya, a Charvaka appears as a character.

Great masters

In the texts

• Barhaspatya Sutras (fragments)
• Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarashi
• Sarvadarshanasangraha, chapter 1

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