Subhendu Sarkar
Working on the various aspects of the Carvaka since 1995,
Bhatta-charya has succeeded in improving on the findings of the earlier
scholars. He has not only disproved certain popular notions about the Carvaka
but also refuted some claims made by various scholars. Besides, Bhattacharya
throws light on some entirely new areas.
The Carvaka/Lokayata has a special place in the history of
Indian philosophy. Contending against the pro-Vedic Brahminical and the
non-Vedic Buddhist and Jain schools, the Carvaka flouted the belief in
after-life and afterworld and advocated an uncompromising materialist
philosophy in ancient India .
But as the most of the material relating to the Carvaka is lost, the reconstruction
of the fundamental principles has been done on the basis of whatever little is
found in the works of its opponents and the extracts quoted by them. The most
recent addition to the list of systematic study on the Carvaka has been attempted by Ramkrishna Bhattacharya.*
Working on the various aspects of the Carvaka since 1995,
Bhatta-charya has succeeded in improving on the findings of the earlier
scholars. He has not only disproved certain popular notions about the Carvaka
but also refuted some claims made by various scholars. Besides, Bhattacharya
throws light on some entirely new areas.
The book is a collection of twenty three more or less
self-complete articles dealing with different aspects of the Carvaka.
Bhattacharya charts the history of pre-Carvaka materialist philosophy in India (in
chapters II and III) by citing Ajit Kesakambalin, a senior contemporary of the
Buddha and Mahavira, and other Buddhist, Jain and Brahminical sources. The five
commentators (Aviddhar-karna, Bhavivikta Kambalasvatara, Purandara and
Udbhatabhatta) of the Carvakasutra who flourished before the eighth century BCE
and their works are discussed in some detail in chapter V. Moreover,
Bhattacharya discards some of the Carvaka fragments offered by the earlier
scholars and discovers some new aphorisms, verses and other fragments in
chapter VI.
It has been a popular belief regarding the Carvaka-s that
they considered sense-experience as the only means of right knowledge.
Frauwallner thought that there had been a deviation from this ‘orthodoxy’ in
the works of the later materialists like Purandara and others. Bhattacharya
disagrees with Frauwallner on this point and shows in chapter IV that Purandara’s
admittance of ‘inference as is well-known in the world’ is not a ‘revisionist’
approach but only an expiation on the original Carvaka view regarding the means
of right knowledge. In fact, what is advocated is that the limited validity of
inference is not doubted by the Carvaka-s. However, the Carvaka-s did not
accept inferences that transgress the worldly way in order to prove the
existence of the imperishable soul, its transmigration after the death of a
person, God, heaven and hell, the omniscient being, etc.
As for the two common notions regarding the Carvaka-s that
they preached sensual gratification as the summum bonum of life and that
pleasure alone is the end of life, Bhattacharya shows that they are false
charges leveled against the Carvaka-s by their opponents with an intention to
make the doctrine appear morally reprehensible. In fact, this has been the most
common practice against all materialists, past and present. Epicurus too had to
suffer similar charges. The Carvaka-s did say that there is no pleasure beyond
this world. But it does not necessarily mean that they were hedonists.
Bhattacharya aptly demonstrates in chapter XIX how the verses were distorted
and then attributed to the Carvaka-s. Bhattacharya does not only disprove
certain verses ascribed to the Carvaka; he also examines, for the first time,
several hitherto unexploited sources (for example, Perso-Arabic in chapter
XXII) to study the references made to the Carvaka.
No doubt, Bhattacharya's book is an important contribution
to the study of the relentless materialist philosophy of ancient India .
*
Firenzie : Societa Editrice Fiorentina, 2009. pp. 251. 28
Pound. (Indian edition : New Delhi : Manohar Publishers and
Distributors, 2010, Anthem Press India, 2012)
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