Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya
[This essay was first published as part of a collection of essays, Indian Thought - An Introduction, edited by Donald H Bishop, and published in 1975. - Background
- Lokayata Epistemology
- Social Ethics
- Consciousness
- Lokayata and Indian Materialism]
I. Background
It is generally assumed that Indian materialism can be discussed today only on the basis of what the others had to say about it. Not that nothing is accepted as authentic statements of the materialists. A few scraps are indeed admitted to be so. Peculiarly, however, even these are recovered from the writings of their opponents. Such, then, is supposed to be the characteristic limitation of our knowledge of Indian materialism. This, though not wholly true, contains an important element of truth, about which it is necessary for us to be clear first. This is perhaps best done by way of recapitulating the main historical data that we have.
The Indian proto-philosophical literature of c. the 7th century B.C., called the Upanishads, contains a number of references to distinctly materialist views. In default of any ground to think that these are all references to a unified world-view deserving to be called the materialism of ancient India
Not many centuries after the Upanishads, in the Pali canons of early Buddhism, we frequently come across the name Lokayata, meaning either "that which is essentially this worldly" or "that which is prevalent among the common people." But these works are peculiarly vague about the nature of the view referred to by this name. This is all the more peculiar because the works are fully aware of the materialistic or proto-materialistic tendencies of the age, which are sometimes associated with individual thinkers like Ajita Kesakamball and Payasi but never identified with the Lokayata. This leads some modern scholars to think that in the Pali Buddhist works the name Lokayata does not stand for any philosophy at all; it means instead something like "nature-lore".
However, it is different in the Arthasastra, the famous work on Indian polity which could have been as old as the 3rd century B. c. According to it, Lokayata is definitely the name of a philosophy, and, as a matter of fact, one of the three logic-oriented philosophies it recognizes. The name also occurs in the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana as an undesirable heretical view. These epics moreover speak of a certain demon called Carvaka, who, because of his arrogant impiety, had to be burnt alive by the pious Brahmins.
The grammarian Patanjali of c.150 BC refers to a commentary on some original Lokayata work. The Buddhist work Divyavadana - which probably assumes its present form in the 4th century A. D. but which undoubtedly records a much older tradition-also speaks of an original work on the Lokayata and of some commentary on it. But such Lokayata works, evidently once in circulation, are irrevocably lost. The recent furore created by the discovery of an allegedly Lokayata text-the Tattvopaplavasimha by Jayarasi Bhatta of c. 8th century A.D.-is dying out. With the actual study of this book it is being increasingly realized that the evidence connecting it with the Lokayata is really worse than flimsy and the text has nothing to do with materialism excepting an outright rejection of it.
After the early mention of the Lokayata, Indian literature - both philosophical and non-philosophical - is peculiarly silent about it for several centuries. Roughly from the middle of the 8th century, however, the more sophisticated Indian philosophers begin to show a great deal of renewed interest not only in the old name Lokayata now somehow identified with the Carvaka - but also in the basic tenets which it is supposed to stand for. This interest, though primarily negative or polemical, is nevertheless keen. Here are just a few examples of it.
The earliest available compendium of Indian philosophy - the saddarsana-samuccaya by the Jaina philosopher Haribhadra of c. 8th century-takes note of only six systems of Indian philosophy, one of which is Lokayata, also called Carvaka. Its renowned commentator, Gunaratna, shows the most hair-splitting scholasticism for elaborately refuting one of the basic Lokayata tenets. The same is shown by the famous Buddhist idealists, Santaraksita and Kamalasila of the 8th century. Sankara (A.D. 788-820), the Advaita Vedantist, proposes to refute the Lokayata view in more than one place in his magnum opus. Jayanta Bhatta of the 9th century A.D., one of the maturest exponents of Indian logic and atomism, takes a great deal of care to refute the Lokayata views. Indeed, it may not be an exaggeration to think that from the 8th century onwards practically all the outstanding Indian philosophers follow this procedure. It is no wonder, therefore, that the most important compendium of Indian philosophy, the Sarva-darsana-samgraha by the Vedantist Madhava of the 14th century, opens with a rather detailed description of the Lokayata or Carvaka philosophy; for, from Madhava's own point of view, this is the philosophy that must be rejected first.
At the present stage of historical research, it may be premature to conjecture on the real cause of this renewed interest in the Lokayata philosophy roughly from the 8th century. What particularly concerns us, however, is its effect on the making of the contemporary image of materialism in ancient and medieval India
For understanding Indian materialism, what contemporary scholarship gains from the polemics against the Lokayata is of course obvious. Since a considerable number of advanced Indian philosophers persistently try to refute a number of definitely materialist tenets as tenets characteristic of the Lokayatas or Carvakas and since it is being irresponsible to imagine that they are all fighting a fiction, modern scholars are obviously justified in trying to reconstruct the otherwise lost account of Lokayata materialism from the polemics against it. At the same time, the general tendency of modern scholars to understand Indian materialism as such exclusively on the basis of these polemics imposes certain limitations on their understanding of it. Two of these limitations are particularly prominent. First, it easily misleads them to identify Lokayata materialism with Indian materialism as a whole, i.e. it prevents them from seeing the materialism and materialist proclivities of many other Indian philosophers, inclusive of some who want anxiously to be dissociated from the Lokayata. It is like imagining that since the opponents of materialism in European philosophy persistently oppose Democritus, the materialist tradition of Europe is to be equated with the philosophy of Democritus. Or, it is like imagining that Marx and Engels are not materialists because they dissociate themselves from the French materialists of the 18th century.
Secondly, even the nature of Lokayata materialism is sometimes seriously misunderstood, the characteristic limitation of the source of our knowledge of it being taken as the characteristic peculiarity of the Lokayata itself. Thus, the opponents of the Lokayata find it necessary to refute it only on the context of defending certain positive tenets of their own. They are therefore more anxious to say what the Lokayata does not admit than what it does. This is construed to mean that the Lokayata is interested only in demolishing certain philosophical positions and not in positively building up of any. The decisive thing about Indian materialism, as an eminent modern scholar comments, "is its purely negative interest" (Frauwallner). This is an error, not only because it is based on a rather superficial understanding of the available data about the Lokayata but even more because it shows no understanding of the dialectics underlying Indian philosophical methodology.
From the Indian point of view, the essential precondition of philosophical activity is "doubt" (samasya or vimarsa) and the precondition of "doubt" itself is the open confrontation of the "thesis" (paksa) with the "antithesis" (pratipaksa). As a result, it is not at all permissible for a serious Indian philosopher to state his own "thesis" without first negating its "antithesis," called the purvapaksa. Naturally, therefore, in Indian philosophical writings, this "antithesis" looks largely negative from the standpoint of the "thesis," just as this "thesis" itself looks negative from the standpoint of its own "antithesis". But this does not mean that neither the "thesis" nor the "antithesis" is barely negative in content. The fact that we have the account of the Lokayata only in the form of the "antithesis" may give it a deceptive appearance of negativism. But this is not to be taken as the decisive thing about the Lokayata, far less of Indian materialism as such.
Of these two limitations of the current understanding of Indian materialism, in the present essay, there will be little scope to remove the first. A survey of materialism and the materialist trends outside the Lokayata means the survey of an extensive field of Indian philosophy-particularly of atomism (paramanu-vada) and of the philosophy of primeval matter (pradhana-vada)-which, again, is difficult without being often controversial. The present essay will, therefore, primarily be a positive account of Lokayata materialism and it will barely hint why our idea of Indian materialism as such needs to be much broader.
II. Lokayata Epistemology
The assorted polemics against the Lokayata, along with the philosophical compendiums by Haribhadra and Madhava, give us the unmistakable impression that the opponents of the Lokayata are bothered by it, particularly because of the positions it takes in epistemology, ontology and social ethics.
In epistemology, the position seems to be that of the primacy of empirical knowledge. The Indian way of putting this is that sense-experience (pratyaksa) is supremely important as a source or instrument of right knowledge (praman.a). But this is readily misinterpreted as a purely negative attitude to the rational faculty, or, in Indian terminology, as the condemnation of inference (anumana). That this is a wrong understanding of the actual Lokayata position can be judged from two important evidences. Purandara of c. 7th century A.D., whom others refer to as "an author representing the Carvaka standpoint," is quoted by a Jaina philosopher as clarifying the Carvaka position as follows. Carvaka "admits the usefulness of inference as determining the nature of all worldly things where perceptual experience is available; but inference cannot be employed for establishing any dogma regarding the transcendental world, or life after death or the law of Karma. The main reason for upholding such a distinction between the validity of reference in our practical life of ordinary experience, and in ascertaining transcending truths beyond experience, lies in this that an inductive generalization is made by observing a large number of cases of agreement in presence together with agreement in absence, and no cases of agreement in presence can be observed in the transcendental sphere; for even if such cases existed, they could not be perceived by the senses." (S. N. Dasgupta)
This is corroborated by Jayanta Bhatta who says that, from the Carvaka standpoint, ordinary everyday inferences-like that of fire from smoke-is not questioned at all, because inferences like these have for their basis previous perceptual knowledge, i.e. the experience of the invariable co-presence of fire with smoke. What the Carvaka actually rejects, says Jayanta, is the inference of God, soul and the other world, i.e. inference supposed to have no relation at all to previous empirical evidence.
Incidentally, such a position in epistemology is not fundamentally different from the classical one of Indian logic as represented by the Nyaya-sutra, which also mentions previous perceptual evidence as an essential precondition of legitimate inference. Hence, from the Nyaya standpoint, sense-experience is the most basic of all the sources of knowledge – pramana-jyestha, literally "the eldest of the sources of knowledge"-and any inference going against the evidence of sense-experience is to be summarily rejected as a pseudo-inference.
However, where the Lokayata seems to differ from the Nyaya is in the motivation for the somewhat similar understanding of legitimate inference. While for the Nyaya, the main interest for assigning primacy to sense-experience is mainly its science-orientation, that of the Lokayata is frankly practical, or, more specifically, socio-ethical. Thus, we are persistently told that, according to these materialists, a great deal of cheating is going on in society with the talk of God, the soul and the other world. They are, therefore, anxious to show that such talk is a mere hoax, because these are never directly experienced and hence cannot be proved by inference either. This hoax, they further argue, is not really purposeless. It is deliberately designed to serve as a source of livelihood for the social parasites, i.e. in Lokayata terminology, of those that share in neither intellectual nor manual labour (buddhi-paurusa-hinah).
III. Social Ethics
This leads us to a discussion of the social ethics of the Lokayatas. Certain "authentic popular verses" (pramanikalokagatha) are persistently attributed to them by their opponents mainly to show how very impious these materialists are. However, in the general atmosphere of casteism, scripture-mongering, obscurantism and the economic drainage of futile rituals, the debunking of all these by the Lokayatas in defence of the normal pleasures of this worldly existence still retains a great deal of scientific and social interest for us. It is impossible to retain in English translation the biting satire of their simple verses. But here is a rough translation of some of these as compiled in Madhava's Sarva-darasna-samgraha:
“Heaven and liberation are mere empty talks. There is no soul that is imagined to go to the other world. The actions prescribed for the caste-society (varnasrama) do not really yield their alleged results."
"The Agnihotra sacrifice, the three Vedas, the holding of the three staves and (the practice of the religious professionals of) smearing the body with ashes-all these are nothing but the sources of livelihood for persons that share neither in intellectual nor in manual labour."
"If, (as claimed by the priests), the animal killed in the Jyotistoma sacrifice attains heaven straightway, why does not the sacrificer kill his own father (and thus ensure heaven for him)?"
"If the performance of the Sraddha (i.e. the rite performed for the dead-a main source of the priest's income-in which food is offered to the dead) causes satisfaction to those that are already dead, oil put into the lamp even after it is blown off should as well make its flame ablaze."
"Besides, the same assumption (namely that food offered in sraddha actually feeds the departed) should make it superfluous for the traveller to carry provisions with himself, because he should as well be satisfied while travelling afar by the food offered to him at home in the form of Sraddha."
"If, what is offered in sraddha can satisfy beings supposed to be in heaven, why not offer food down below for one actually on top of a tower?"
"As long as you live, live happily. Feed yourself with butter, even though on loan. Once the body is reduced to ashes, how can it ever return again?"
"If after quitting the body one goes to the other world, how is it that one does not return again drawn by the love for friends and others?
“Hence, it is only as a source of livelihood that the Brahmins here have introduced the rites of the dead. There is nothing more in all these.
"The authors ~f the three Vedas are just cheats and cunning thieves. All the pedantic formulas, the meaningless spells - jarphari-turphari -like the wife taking the horse's phallus (i.e. a part of the Asvamedha sacrifice), are nothing but the inventions of cheats for the purpose of obtaining their sacrificial fees."
It is not difficult to see that the main theoretical basis of this social ethics is the denial of the soul over and above the body and hence also the denial of the other world where this soul is supposed to migrate after death. Put in Indian terminology, the point is paralokino'bhavat-paralokabhava: the fiction of the other world because of the fictitious nature of that which is imagined to go to the other world. This is of course a negative way of putting the point. For all that we know of the Lokayatas, however, it is obvious that they are also anxious to put their point positively. Thus, it is repeatedly said, in the Lokayata view only four material elements -earth, water, fire and air-are real. Human beings, like everything else in the world, are made of only these. So it is useless to assume any spiritual substance-the soul-to explain human nature. Or, what the others imagine to be the soul is nothing but the physical frame with its physiological functions.
IV. Consciousness
The most formidable problem in taking such a position is evidently that of the fact of consciousness. If nothing but crass matter goes into the formation of the entire psycho-physical organization, how can the presence of consciousness in human-or, more broadly, animal-bodies be explained? After all, the gross physical elements like earth, water, etc., are by themselves admittedly unconscious. How, then, do the Lokayatas propose to explain the indisputable evidence of consciousness in human beings consistently with their assumption that nothing but intrinsically unconscious material elements go into the making of everything about it?
When we look back at these materialists, their understanding of the nature of matter cannot but appear to us to be rudimentary and naive. Nor do we expect of them any knowledge of the central nervous system, particularly of the brain. In other words, the scientific data actually at their disposal is, in modern standards, miserable indeed. It is therefore extremely remarkable that, in spite of the severe limitations under which they are historically obliged to work, they do make a bold attempt at an explanation of the origin of consciousness from matter. And their main lines of argument, as far as we can judge them from the account given by their opponents, still have distinct theoretical interest for us. Three of their lines of argument deserve special mention.
First, the origin of consciousness from the material elements, each of which is itself unconscious, appears impossible to others because of one assumption. It is the assumption that an altogether new quality cannot emerge from some peculiar combination and transformation (visesa-parinama) of certain things that are by themselves distinctly devoid of this quality. But this assumption itself is an undue one. The fact, on the contrary, is that there are definitely observed cases of such new emergence. As the most typical case of such observation, the Lokayatas are said to mention the following. None of the ingredients used to prepare spirituous liquor or alcohol possesses the quality called "intoxicating power" (mada-sakti). Yet the fact is that when these ingredients are combined and transformed in a special form we get spirituous liquor with its intoxicating power. Evidently, the Lokayatas are yet to know the full explanation of such a fact. Nevertheless, the fact is there, and it proves that the emergence of a new quality altogether is not really as absurd as others may view it. And, if it is really not absurd, the view of the emergence of the new quality called consciousness from the peculiar transformation of the material elements in the form of the body cannot be ruled out as prima facie absurd.
Secondly, there are sound positive grounds to think that consciousness cannot but be the product of matter, i.e. of the material elements when transformed into the body. That this body is made of matter alone is admitted by all. Therefore, the question is: Is there any ground to view consciousness as a quality of the body, or as an effect of the body? There are, assert the Lokayatas. In Indian terminology, the causal connection between two phenomena can be established on the basis of anvaya confirmed by vyatireka, which we may roughly translate as "uniform co-presence" confirmed by "uniform co-absence". Thus, fire-cum-wet-fuel is proved as the cause of smoke because the observation of the uniform co-presence of fire-cum-wet-fuel is confirmed by the observation that the absence of fire-cum-wet-fuel is always connected with the absence of smoke. So, argue the Lokayatas, is the case of body and consciousness. Wherever there is the presence of body there is also the presence of consciousness. Further, wherever there is the absence of body there is also the absence of consciousness. Hence consciousness is the effect of the body.
According to the norm of Indian logic, there are only two ways of refuting such an argument. First, by pointing to the evidence of the presence of the body along with the absence of consciousness. Secondly, by pointing to the evidence of the absence of the body along with the presence of consciousness. There is no doubt that the opponents of Lokayata explore both possibilities. Thus it is argued that in the case of the corpse there is a presence of the body along with the absence of consciousness. Besides, disembodied consciousness is possible in the case of the transmigrating soul that has left one body without yet acquiring another. From the Lokayata point of view, there is no reason to take such arguments seriously. A corpse is not a body-ie. a functioning physiological unit the materialists are talking of-no more than a pile of junk is an automobile or an airplane. As for the disembodied consciousness of the transmigrating soul the less said the better, for one cannot just assume the soul for the purpose of proving its existence.
From the writings of Jayanta Bhatta, we have a glimpse of another line of the Lokayata argument proving consciousness as the product of matter. As Jayanta puts it, "It is commonly observed that a body well-nourished with food and drinks· has improved consciousness. The reverse happens in the reverse case (i.e. in the absence of nourishment of the body, there is a deterioration of consciousness). Besides, the body of a young man who takes the Brahmi-ghrita (i.e. 'brain tonic' of traditional Indian medicine) shows a remarkable improvement of consciousness . . . . Thus the improvement and deterioration of consciousness is directly explicable by the presence or absence· of the excess of material elements. "
The argument is elemental in simplicity; palpably material things in the form of food, drink, 'brain tonic', etc., absorbed in the human body, go into the making of consciousness. How far, in Indian philosophy, the opponents of materialism successfully refute this argument is of course a different question. For the present we have another question of greater historical interest. From where does Jayanta Bhatta collect this argument which he attributes to the Lokayatas?
In view of the fact that the Lokayata texts are lost presumably before the time of Jayanta Bhatta himself, it would be impermissible to conjecture that he collects it from some extinct Lokayata work. But it will be also impermissible to think that he collects it from nowhere, i.e. manufactures it himself. There exists a text in which the same argument-or at least its unmistakable prototype does occur; and Jayanta's personal lack of acquaintance with it can be thought of only at the cost of sanity. This text is the Chandogya Upanishad and the argument under consideration is attributed in it to one of the first philosophers of India
Uddalaka Aruni was instructing his son Svetaketu. The original source of everything in the universe, he said, was primeval undifferentiated "being". From this successively evolved fire, water and food. Everything in the universe-inclusive of the body and mind of man-eventually evolved from these three. In the immediate context of our discussion what interests us most is Uddalaka's view of the origin of mind from the food assimilated into the body. We quote here only that part of his discourse which contains this view.
Uddalaka Aruni said to his son Svetaketu: "Food, when eaten, undergoes a threefold division. Its coarsest constituent is transformed into faeces; its medium (constituent is transformed) into the flesh and its subtlest (constituent is transformed) into the mind. Water, when drunk, undergoes a threefold division. Its coarsest constituent is transformed into urine; its medium (constituent is transformed) into blood; its subtlest (constituent is transformed) into breath (prana, life). Heat (i.e. in the form of oil, butter, etc.), when consumed, undergoes a threefold division. Its coarsest constituent is transformed into bone; its medium (constituent is transformed) into marrow; its subtlest (constituent is transformed) into speech."
The son Svetaketu wanted to understand the view more fully. So the father continued: "Of curd, my dear, when churned, that which is subtle moves upward. It becomes butter. In the same way, my dear, of the food that is eaten, that which is subtle moves upward. It becomes the mind. Of water, my dear, when drunk, that which is subtle moves upward. It becomes breath (life). Of heat (oil, butter, etc.), when consumed, that which is subtle moves upward. It becomes the speech. Thus, my dear, the mind consists of food, the breath (life) consists of water, the speech consists of heat." The son wanted to understand the view even more deeply and so the father continued: "A person, my dear, consists of sixteen parts. For fifteen days do not eat (any food, but) drink water as you please. Breath (life), which consists of water, will not be cut off from one who drinks water."
So for fifteen days the son did not eat any food and then went to the father. The father wanted him to recite the Vedas. Svetaketu said: "These do not occur to me, Sir." To him Uddalaka said: "Just as, my dear, of a great mass of fire only a single piece of coal of the size of a firefly may be left with which the fire would not thereafter burn much longer,-similarly, my dear, only one part of your sixteen parts is left and with it you fail to apprehend the Vedas. Eat. Then you will understand me." Then the son ate and approached the father. This time whatever Uddalaka asked him Svetaketu answered everything. Then to him, Uddalaka said: "Just as, my dear, of a great mass of fire only a single piece of (burning) coal of the size of a firefly is left, and covered with straw, it is made to blaze up and this fire would burn much thereafter, - so, my dear, of your sixteen parts only the sixteenth was left over; being covered with food, that is made to blaze up. With this you can now understand the Vedas. For, my dear, the mind consists of food, the breath (life) consists of water, the speech consists of heat." Then Svetaketu understood what he said. Well, he understood.
There is of course no ground to think that Uddalaka is a follower of the Lokayata. In Indian literature, the name Lokayata comes in circulation after the Upanishads. However, if an advanced philosopher like Jayanta Bhatta wants to look back at the basic suggestion of Uddalaka to illustrate how the Lokayata wants to substantiate their view of the origin of consciousness from matter, it follows not only that the materialist tradition in Indian philosophy is older than the Lokayata but moreover - and this is much more important - that our understanding of Indian materialism runs the risk of being too narrow in so far as it is identified only with the Lokayata, as is usually done in textbooks on Indian philosophy.
Chatterjee , SC and DM Datta, An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, Calcutta
V. Lokayata and Indian Materialism
The identification of Indian materialism with Lokayata materialism, though mistaken, is not without a cause. We have already referred to it. Roughly from the 8th century A. D., the Indian philosophers themselves persistently refer to certain overtly materialistic tenets as tenets characteristic of the Lokayatas. This, rightly understood, should have only meant that Lokayata is a form of materialism-perhaps the most out-spoken and plain-speaking form of it. But this cannot and does not mean that in Indian philosophy there is no materialism outside the Lokayatas. Even those that sharply differ from the Lokayata, differ from it not necessarily for the purpose of differing from materialism as such. Some of them - particularly the Indian idealists-reject the Lokayata materialism for this purpose no doubt. However, among those that represent the antithesis of idealism, there are at least some who dissociate themselves from Lokayata materialism mainly because they want to defend a more advanced understanding of the nature of matter on the basis of which they hope to work out a better explanation of the universe. There is, moreover, obvious socio-ethical consideration on which these philosophers do not like to take the radical position of the Lokayatas. Philosophically speaking however, their socio-ethical position is not even half as significant as their comparatively advanced understanding of the nature of matter.
Of such philosophies that differ from the Lokayata materialism mainly on the question of matter, two are especially prominent. These are paramanu-vada or atomism, defended particularly by the Nyaya-Vaisesikas, and pradhana-vada or the theory of primeval matter defended by the Samkhya philosophers.
I am fully aware that what I am trying to drive at is highly unconventional. To include paramanu-vada and pradhana-vada in the materialist tradition of Indian philosophy is to most of its modern interpreters an atrocious distortion of fact. But the real reason for such an attitude is not the nature of these philosophies but a huge heap of intellectual debris that has somehow accumulated in the name of Indian philosophy. The resulting situation is so ridiculous that even the question whether an atomist is basically a materialist or not becomes highly controversial in the context of traditional Indian philosophy. Not that such debris cannot be cleared away. What is needed for the purpose, however, is the scope of a full-length study. This I have attempted elsewhere, which has led me to view the Indian materialist tradition as being represented mainly by three philosophies, the Lokayata, Samkhya and Nyaya-Vaisesika.
Bibiliography
Chattopadhyaya, D, Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism, New Delhi
Chattopadhyaya, D, What is Living and What Is Dead in Indian Philosphy, New Delhi
Dasgupta, SN, History of Indian Philosophy, Cambridge
Frauwallner, E., Indian Philosophy, New Delhi
Raju, PT., The Philosophical Traditions of India , London
Sharma, C., Indian Philosophy: A Critical Survey, London
Sinha, J., Outlines of Indian Philosophy, Calcutta
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