Ramkrishna Bhattacharya
Reverting to the other
commentators on the Cārvākasūtra, it may be said that Aviddhakarna, like
Udbhata, attempted to interpret the Cārvāka aphorisms from the Nyāya-Vaiśesika
point of view, perhaps without being converted to the Cārvāka. Since it is not
possible at the present state of our knowledge to determine whether they were Cārvākas
converted to Nyāya or Naiyāyikas converted to Lokāyata, as Eli Franco (1997,
142) says, my suggestion—they simply adopted the Cārvāka position while writing
their commentaries without being converted to the Cārvāka—may be taken as a
third alternative.
In this connection Franco mentions
(1997, 142) the name of Bhāvivikta along with Aviddhakarna, for both of them
are known to have written Cārvāka and Nyāya works. However, there is nothing to
show that Bhāvivikta, like Udbhata, went for a novel line of interpreting the Cārvākasūtra.
This is why Cakradhara calls him one of the ancient masters of the traditional Cārvākas,
cirantanacārvākācārya (GrBh II: 257), following Jayanta’s own
description. Jayanta also notes the dualist position adopted by Udbhata as
against the traditional, monist one which did not believe in the independent
existence of the spirit (NM II: 257).
If we care to notice the plural
number employed by Kamalaśila (TSP II: 633) as well as Cakradhara (GrBh
II: 257) in regard to the vrttikāras of the Cārvākasūtra (now
lost), we may legitimately think of more than five commentators of the mūla
text whose names so far are known to us. Apparently some followed the
conventional approach and adhered to the mainstream tradition, while Udbhata
and his followers proposed to advance an alternative line of dualist
materialism, as borne out by GrBh: II: 257–258, 262. All of them,
however, stuck to the basic premise: inference cannot be accepted as an
independent instrument of cognition, although such inferences as are verified
and verifiable by perception may be admitted. Solomon does not accept Mahendra
Kumar Jain’s view that there were two Aviddhakarnas, one a Naiyāyika and the
other a Cārvāka(1971, 23). It is possible that, like Vācaspatimiśra, both
Aviddhakarn: a and Bhāvivikta composed two separate commentaries on the Cārvākasūtra
without being converted to the Cārvāka. Since there is no hard fact either for
accepting or for denying such a hypothesis, both the possibilities—one Aviddhakarna
and one Bhāvivikta or two Aviddhakarnas and two Bhāviviktas—remain open. It is
however worth noting that Aviddhakarna, like Udbhata, is admitted as a Cārvāka in
NVV II: 101, not merely as an author of a Nyāya text.
Solomon is of the view that both
Aviddhakarna and Udbhata belong to
a section of thinkers who while firmly
adhering to the doctrines of the Nyāya school, saw some affinity of the school
with the Lokāyata school inasmuch as nothing is said in the Nyāya-sūtra
about God, creation of the world, heaven [,] hell, etc. They perhaps wrote
commentaries on the sūtras of the Lokāyata interpreting them in a new
light and making their views more cogent and acceptable, so that the Lokāyata could
have a better philosophical status. Bhāvivikta, Udbhata and perhaps even
Aviddhakarna belonged to such a group and so were ridiculed as ‘Cirantana Cārvāka’
or ‘Par[a]malokāyatammanya’ perhaps by the Cārvākas, as also
by Nyāya philosophers who marched with the times and admitted the reality of
heaven, etc., in their own philosophical system. This also explains why their
views are hardly given any importance in the orthodox line of thinkers of the Nyāya School,
whereas the Buddhists respect their clear-headedness. Even if looking to the
expressions used we consider them as Cārvākas, we would have to admit that they
tried to liberalise and re-interpret the orthodox Cārvāka doctrines, but
remained faithful to the Nyāya doctrines in their commentaries on Nyāya works.
I am inclined to regard them as primarily Nyāya thinkers (–they are referred to
by Sāntaraksita and others among them–) who tried to bring the Lokāyata concepts
closer [to Nyāya?], and to make them a little more philosophical (1973, 4:
11–12).
While such a possibility cannot
be ruled out, I have only one comment to offer: Cakradhara clearly contrasts
Bhāvivikta with Udbhata: the former alone is called a cirantanacārvāka while
the latter’s innovative interpretation is noted both by Cakradhara (GrBh
II: 257–258) and Vādidevasūri (SVR 764) as going against the tradition, yathāsrutārtha
(GrBh I: 100). (In the last sentence quoted from Solomon, we must read
Kamalaśila instead of Sāntaraksita, who alludes to Kambalāśvatara alone, while
Kamalaśila refers in addition to Aviddhakarna and Purandara (TSP 521,
528–529). Bhāvivikta is mentioned by Cakradhara only once (GrBh II:
257)); no passage has been quoted from his work.
It is also to be noted that the
commentators always had their rival philosophical systems in mind which sought
to find fault with such materialist premises as consciousness can be present
when and only when there is a body. Kambalāśvatara, for example, explains that
the word ‘‘body’’ here is to be taken as one endowed with the five breaths, Prāna,
Apāna, etc. (TS 22. 1863, II: 635). In other words, cognition is
produced from the body inhabited or governed by the five breaths, i.e., a
living body, not a corpse. Such a clarification may have been necessitated by
some opponent’s resorting to jalpa, or chala, or vitandā
in this context. Purandara and others too may have been constrained to explain
their view of inference over and over again because of the same reason: to
counteract the caricature so often resorted to by their opponents, such as
Vācaspatimiśra (see above).
The term parināmaviśesah
is found in several sources (see Bhattacharya 2009, 182, n. 20) but it is not
clear whether there was an aphorism to this effect. It is probable that while
explicating aphorism I.4 (‘Their combination (sc. of the four elements) is
called the ‘‘body’’, ‘‘sense’’ and ‘‘object’’’), some commentator used this
term to disabuse all (specially anti-materialists) of the notion (or to guard
against actual or possible misinterpretation?) that any combination of the
elements could give rise to consciousness in a body. He pointed out that only
‘‘a specific kind of transformation’’ could do so.
Speaking of the dominance of the
senses in the materialist system, Sukhlal Sanghavi elucidates that the
statement that pramāņa depends on the senses does not mean that the Cārvākas
refuse such pramānas as inference or word which are used everyday and
established everywhere; the Cārvāka calls itself pratyaksamātravādin—indiryapratyaksamātravādin
in the sense that inference, word, etc. are not laukika pramānas since
their validity is not ascertainable without the information provided by sense
perception. If, however, some jñānavyāpāra, not contradicted by sense
perception, is called pramāna, the Cārvāka has no objection to it (1941/1987,
13–14). He had spoken of this before too (1939, 4 = 1961, 4) and his opinion is
corroborated by Vādidevasūri (SVR 265–266), Ratnaprabhā (PNTA
640), Gunaratna (TRD 306) and the anonymous author of SMS (15).
In short, acceptance of laukika anumāna or lokaprasiddha hetu or lokapratiti,
according to Sukhlalji, has been a part of the Cārvāka epistemology since its
very inception. Purandara was not forced to introduce it in the wake of
Dharmakirti’s appearance (as some modern scholars believe).
Objection may be raised again:
How do you know that? The answer is simple: This has been the view of all
materialists in ancient India,
even before the Cārvākas appeared in the scene. A passage in the Mbh
12.211.26-27 (crit. ed.; 218.27-28 in vulgate) makes a materialist declare:
pratyaksam: hyetayor mūlam: krtāntaitihyayor
api/
pratyakse hyāgamo ’bhinnah:
krtānto vā na kimcana//
yatra tatrānumāne ’sti krtam
bhāvayate’pi vā/
anyo jīvah śarīrasya nāstikānām:
mate smrtah: //
The conclusion based on inference
and tradition—both are rooted in perception. Perception and testimony (what we
are told to believe in) are identical; reasoned-out truth (= inference) too is
nothing else but perception.
It is proved everywhere that the
body exists. What the āstikas think—that there is a soul without the
body—is not (proved).
The terminology is different:
inference is called krtānta, perception, krta. The last line of
the second verse is tricky: it does not mean what Nīlakantha and the early
translators took it to be because of the faulty reading in the mss at their disposal.
It should not be understood as ‘‘what the naāstikas think’’, but as āstikānaām
mate na smrtah (Belvalkar has rightly shown this in his notes in the crit.
ed.); otherwise the line would read like one of those proverbial vyāsakūtas.
Extreme brevity of the sūtras
badly requires elaboration and fixing the exact collocation of technical terms
employed in the mūla text. This left a very wide scope for the commentators
to fix the collocation of words as they understood them or chose to mean.
Udbhata in this respect surpasses all his predecessors. He anticipates
Humpty-Dumpty: iti or tebhyah should mean just what he would
choose them to mean, “neither more nor less” (Carroll Ch. 6, 269): iti should
be taken as illustrative, not denoting the end; tebhyah (or bhūtebhyah)
should mean “for them”, not “from them” (Comms. 8–10, 16). Whether
Aviddhakarna, Kambalāśvatara and Purandara also followed the same line is not
known. On the contrary, Bhāvivikta and others seem to have followed the
traditional track without twisting the familiar and obvious meanings of the
words employed in the sūtra.
Jayanta and Vādidevasūri in their
polemics against the Cārvāka sometimes target the mainstream views of the old Cārvākas
and at other times, the unconventional interpretations of Udbhata, not always
caring to distinguish between the two. This again is not unprecedented. They
wished to score points over the materialists by hook or by crook. As
polemicists they have every right to do so. But we, as readers should be aware where
they were targeting the sūtrakāra and where the vrttikāra. Such
shifting of target, however, works as a hindrance to the proper understanding
of the original Cārvāka position.
From the available evidence it is
clear that these commentators of the Cārvākasūtra were unanimous in one
point, namely, primacy of perception which includes admittance of such laukika
inference as is preceded and hence can be tested by repeated observations. In
this respect both Aviddkarna and Udbhata were in agreement with Purandara (PVSVT:
19, GrBh 265–266). As is well-known, one of the differences between the Cārvāka
and other philosophical systems, whether orthodox (āstika) or heterodox
(nāstika), hinges on the following point: how many instruments of
cognition are to be admitted as valid. The unanimity of the three commentators
seems to point out that, in spite of other differences of opinion (for example,
how many principles (tattvas) are to be admitted, etc. (GrBh I:
57–58, etc.), all three commentators, Purandara, Aviddhakarna and Udbhata, were
prepared to admit lokaprasiddha anumāna (inference well established in
the world) (TSP II: 528. Cf. PVSVT19, SVR 265–266) and
distinguished between utpannapratiti (the kind of inference in which the
inferential cognition can be acquired by oneself, such as fire from smoke) and
utpādyapratiti (the kind of inference in case of which the inferential
cognition is to be acquired [on somebody else’s advice], such as the self, God,
an omniscient being, the other world, etc.) (NM I: 184). Sukhlal
Sangahvi has very pertinently described the Cārvāka as belonging to indriyādhipatya
paksa (1941/1987, 23), a system in which the sense organs are dominant and
inference, etc. must pass the test of being verified through perception first.
The word (śabda or āptavākya) would also be acceptable when and
only when it is amenable to perceptual verification.
We should also note that one
point of difference in the interpretation of a basic Cārvāka aphorism was
already there even before Purandara and Udbhata. While commenting on the
aphorism, tebhyaś caitanyam there was already some difference of
opinion: the one group supplied the missing verb (adhyāhāra) ‘‘is born’’
(utpadyate/jāyate), the other, ‘‘is manifested’’ (abhivyajyate) (TS-TSP
II: 634–635). The former apparently stuck to the classical materialist position
of monistic materialism: no matter, no consciousness. The second group, on the
other hand, was dualist, assuming that consciousness inheres in matter but in
an unmanifested state. Both groups, however, apparently admitted that tebhyah
is to mean ‘from them’, not ‘for them’, as Udbhata claimed (GrBh I:
257).
Although Sāntaraksita mentioned
only one Cārvāka philosopher by name, Kambalāśvatara (TS 22. 1863, II:
635), he was aware of these two schools of interpretation of the Cārvākasūtra
as is evident from TS 22.1858 (II: 634). Kamalaśila names two more
commentators: Aviddhakarna and Purandara, and refers to the two aforesaid
approaches by opaque words, ‘‘some commentators’’, kecit vrttikārāh and
“some others”, anye (TSP II: 633–634). Unfortunately there is no
way of knowing as yet whether he refers to two individual commentators or
several ones belonging to two commentary traditions. Even though we know the
views of Aviddhakarna and Udbhata concerning other issues, no fragment relating
to this particular aphorism has come down to us.
Conclusion
In spite of the meagre material
available, it is evident that (1) not unlike the other systems, there is a lack
of uniformity in the commentary tradition of the Cārvākasūtra, (2) not
all commentators were committed monistic materialists, at least one, namely,
Udbhata, was a dualist, and (3) in course of time Nyāya-Vaiśesika terminology,
such as gamya, gamaka, etc., quite foreign to the traditional Cārvāka,
has been introduced into the Cārvāka system.
The third observation requires
some elucidation. After explaining utpannapratiti and utpādyapratiti,
Jayanta makes the “better learned ones” (euphemism used ironically to suggest
some Cārvākas) say:
Indeed, who will deny the validity
of inference when one infers fire from smoke and so on; for even ordinary
people ascertain the probandum by such inferences, though they may not be pestered
by the logicians.
Simple minded people cannot
derive the knowledge of the probandum by such inferences, so long as their mind
is not vitiated by cunning logicians (NM I: 184. Emphasis added)
If “the better learned ones”
refer to Udbhata and his followers (as do the other two bantering terms, “the
cunning Cārvāka” and “the well-learned Cārvākas”) we are faced with a problem.
Udbhata himself was prone to employ many technical terms of Nyāya logic. Yet he
cavils against cunning logicians (vitatārkikas)! Apparently Jayanta is
not quoting verbatim from any commentary on the Cārvākasūtra. He is
merely paraphrasing (in verse) the view of a section of the Cārvākas. This
would mean that “the better learned ones” were opposed to the logic-chopping of
other philosophical systems, presumably non-materialistic, who would admit all
sorts of inference, laukika as well as alaukika (derived from scripture
or āpti) as valid instruments of cognition, on a par with perception.
Thus “the better learned ones”, I presume, should refer to some commentators
other than Udbhata or Aviddhakarna, most probably to Purandara who admitted
limited validity of inference insofar as it was based directly on perception.
The contrast made between the old Cārvākas and the new seems to have to do with
the monistic and dualistic position regarding the existence of the spirit.
The dozen or so commentators of
the Brahmasūtra were all intent on expounding their widely different
systems of philosophy, both idealist and realist, monist and dualist, by using
the same mūla-text. The Cārvāka commentators too held different opinions
concerning the number of tattvas and pramānas, and the nature of
consciousness (whether it inheres in the four elements or arises out of them),
but all used the same mūla-text to further their views. Not unlike the
Vedāntins, the latter too had to resort to weird and fanciful interpretations (kastakalpanā),
preferring the far-fetched to the familiar, and made optimum exploitation of
the brevity of the sūtras. It is a pity that the commentary of Bhāvivikta,
the ancient (traditional) Cārvāka, is lost. In the absence of his work, the Cārvāka
system is now understood in the light of the views of some late commentators
who had blatantly deviated from the mainstream view in some, though not all,
vital respects.
Appendix
Esther A. Solomon writes:
‘Looking to the attractive names of the other ācāryas (e.g. Uddyotakara, Bhāsarvanja,
Bhāvivikta and the like), one can confidently say that “Aviddhakarna” is a
nickname signifying “one whose ears are not pierced (or split)”’ (1970: 35).
She proceeds to identify Aviddhakarna as a kānphātā
yogin, a “junior contemporary and the direct disciple of Jālandharapā, and
to have lived in the later part of the sixth century or in the early part of
the seventh century” (1970: 38). In a subsequent article Solomon modified her
view, for piercing the ears was not an exclusive rite of the Nātha community,
it was a part of the religious ceremony for initiation among the Buddhists and
the Jains too. She admits: “Muttering some select mantra in the ears of the
disciple who is to be initiated is also a practice found in many religious
sects” (1971: 24). Hence she concludes, ‘‘Aviddhakarna would thus mean one
whose ears were not pierced, or assaulted with right and wrong words of any
guru or philosopher; that is to say, a self-made man” (1971: 24). The
alternative suggestion is intriguing, reminiscent of Diogenes Laertius’
interpretation of a saying of Heraclitus, edizêsamên
emeôuton, “I searched by myself” (Fr. 101 (Bywater, Diels)). Diogenes took
it to mean: “He (sc. Heraclitus) studied under no one but searched, as he says,
for himself, and he learned everything from himself” (qutd. in Barnes xviii).
This may not be what Heraclitus himself meant, but such an interpretation was
current. Solomon, however, prefers the literal meaning of the name and asserts:
“[S]ince our Aviddhakarna belongs to the Nyāya school we feel that he was one
of the direct pupils of Jālandharpā who did not observe this practice of having
the ears split’” (1971: 24).
Such a hypothesis is strengthened
by what is said of the Naiyāyika and the Vaiśesika by Gunaratna the former is a
devotee of Siva; the latter, a Pāśupata (TRD
51.5-6). One Nyāya-Vaiśesika philosopher, Bhāsarvajna (fl. 860–920) of Kashmir, was a
member of the Pāśupata sect. D. R. Sarma informs us that the prefix bhā-is common to the names of the members
of this sect (163–165). Bhāsarvajna is said to have held certain views “characteristic
of the Pāśupata despite their evident divergence from Nyāya’’ (Potter 2: 399).
Frankly, I do not know what to
make out of all this. The use of nicknames, not in creative writing but in
philosophical literature, must be rare. Moreover it inevitably raises the
question: why should philosophers themselves adopt nicknames? Yet several names
related to light, beginning with bhā-,
must have some significance. Then
there is the name Kambalāśvatara, which makes no sense at all, as Franco (1997,
103) notes in despair. All of them cannot be real names such as Udayana, Kumārila,
Śālikana¯tha, and the like.
Acknowledgements: Amitava
Bhattacharyya, Siddhartha Dutta, Karin Preisendanz. The usual disclaimers
apply.
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Ramkrishna Bhattacharya
taught English at the University of Calcutta, Kolkata and was an Emeritus
Fellow of University Grants Commission. He is now a Fellow of PAVLOV Institute,
Kolkata.
