Commentators on the Cārvākasūtra: A Critical Survey - Part II

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.

Abbreviations and References

Barnes, J. (1986). The presocratic philosophers. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Bhattacharya, R. (2002). Cārvāka fragments: A new collection. Journal of Indian Philosophy, 30, 597–640. [Reprinted with revision in Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata. Firenze: Societa Editrice Fiorentina, 2009 (Indian edition: New Delhi: Manohar, 2010)].

Bhattacharyya, A. K. (1365, Bengali Year). Cārvāka Darśana. Darśana, 6, 3–4. (Reprinted in translation in Chattopadhyaya and Gangopadhyaya, 452–473).

Carroll, L. (1970). Through the looking-glass. In M. Gardner (Ed.), The annotated Alice. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Chattopadhyaya, & Gangopadhyaya. (1990). Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya in collaboration with Mrinalkanti Gangopadhyaya. Cārvāka/Lokāyata. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research.

Franco, E. (1997). Dharmakirti on compassion and rebirth. Wien: Arbeitkreis fur tibetische und buddhistische Studien, Universita¨t Wien.

Franco, E., & Preisendanz, K. (1998). Materialism, Indian school of. In: E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy (Vol. 6, pp. 178–181). London: Routledge.

GrBh. Cakradhara. Granthibhanga. In NM. Jayantabhatta. Nyāyamañjari (in three parts), ed. Gourinatha Sastri. Varanasi: Sampurnanand Sanskrit Visvavidyalaya, 1982–1984.

Gune, P. D. (1923). In C. D. Dalal & P. D. Gune Bhavisayatthakahā. Baroda: Oriental Institute.

Hardy, C. (1958). “Preface” to Humphrey House. In Aristotle’s Poetics. London: Rupert Hart-Davis.

Mbh. The Mahābhārata. Critically ed. by V. S. Sukthankar and others. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933–1966. Vulgate ed. Pancanana Tarkaratna. Kalikata: Vangavasi, 1838 saka.

NCC. New Catalogus Catalogorum, Vol. 2. Ed. Dr. V. Raghavan. Madras: University of Madras, 1966.

NM. Jayantabhatta. Nyāyamañjari (in three parts), ed. Gourinatha Sastri. Varanasi: Sampurnanand Sanskrit Visvavidyalaya, 1982–1984.

PNTA.Vādidevasūri. Pramānanayatattvalokālamkāra with Ratnaprabhā’s commentary, English trans. Dr. Hari Satya Bhattacharya, Bombay: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal, 1967.

Potter, K. H. (Ed.). (1995). Encyclopedia of Indian philosophies (Vol. 2). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Preisendanz, K. (2008). Text, commentary, annotation: Some reflections on the philosophical genre. Journal of Indian Philosophy, 36, 599–618.

Pupphadanta (Puspadanta). Mahāpurāna (Tisatthimahāpurisagunālankāra), vol. I, ed. P. L. Vaidya. Bombay: Manikchand Digambara Jain Granthamala Samiti, 1973.

PVSVT:  Karnakagomin. Pramāna-vārttika-svopajña-vrtti-tikā, ed. Rahula Samkrityayana. Ilahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1943.

Sanghavi, S. (Ed.). (1939). Hemacandra. Pramānamimāmsā. Ahmedabad: Singhi Jain Series.

Sanghavi, S. (Ed.). (1941). Tattvoplavasimha: Cārvāka darsanākā eka apūrva grantha. (Reprinted in Jayarāśibhatta. Tattvopaplavasimha. Varanasi: Bauddhabharati, 1987).

Sanghavi, S. (1961). Advanced studies in Indian logic and metaphysics. Calcutta: Indian Studies Past & Present.

Sarma, D. R. (1934). Name of the author of the Nyāyasāra. Indian Historical Quarterly, 10, 163–165.

SMS. Sarvamatasamgraha, ed. T. Ganapati Sastri, Trivandram, 1918.

Solomon, E. A. (1970). Aviddhakarna—a forgotten Naiyāyika. Vidya, 13, 18–40.

Solomon, E. A. (1971). A further note on Aviddhakarna. Vidya, 14, 21–24.

Solomon, E. A. (1977–1978). Bhatta Udbhata. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 58–59, 986–987.

Sukla.B. (1984;vikramasamvat 2040). Nyāyaśāstriyavicārapaddhatyā dehātmavādasya sambhābhanā. Sarasvati Susamā,38, 121–134.

SVR. Vādidevasūri. Syādvādaratnākara, ed. Motilal Ladhaji Osval. Delhi: Bhartiya Book Corporation, 1988.

TRD. Gunaratna. Tarkarahasyadipikā, in Haribhadra. Saddarśanasamuccaya, ed. Luigi Suali. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1905–1914.

TS. Śāntaraksita. Tattvasangraha (in two parts), ed. Dwarikdas Shastri. Varanasi: Bauddhabharati, 1968.

TSP. Kamalaśila. Tattvasangrahapañjikā. In TS Sāntaraksita. Tattvasangraha (in two parts), ed. Dwarikdas Shastri. Varanasi: Bauddhabharati, 1968.

YS.      Hemacandra. Yogaśāstra with auto-commentary. Bhavnagar: Srijainadharma Pracharaka Sabha, 1926.

This essay was first published in the Journal of Indian Philosophy (Springer Netherlands) in 2010. Part I of the essay can be accessed here. 

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.

Email ID: ramkrishna.bhattacharya@gmail.com

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Cārvāka Miscellany

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Ramkrishna Bhattacharya

The notes propose to throw light on certain aspects of materialism in ancient India and point out some longstanding errors that have gone unnoticed. Some links are also sought to be established between the pre­-Cārvāka materialism and the Cārvāka/Lokāyata system that emerged in or around the sixth/seventh century CE.

I. Max Müller’s faux pas

Modern scholars nowadays seldom (if at all) refer to Friedrich Max Müller (1823-­1900). But to our great-­grandfathers he was a highly respected man, both as an Indologist and as a friend of India. In his once-­celebrated work, The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy (1899), he wrote: ‘The name of Kārvāka [Cārvāka] is clearly connected with that of Kārva [Cārva] and this is given as a synonym of Buddha by Bālasāstrin in the [Sanskrit] preface to his edition of the Kāśikā (p. 2). He is represented as a teacher of the Lokāyatika or world­wide system, if that is the meaning originally intended by that word.’1

It is a comic faux pas. Had Max Müller cared to turn a few pages of the said edition of Kāśikā, on reaching p. 49 he would have found that the word Buddha (on p.2) is a mere misprint for buddhi (intelligence). Bala Sastri was simply paraphrasing the words of Vāmana-Jayāditya, the authors of Kāśikā. In their explication of Panini’s Astādhyayi, 1.3.36, they had written, nāyate cārvi lokāyate, and explained the sentence as follows: ‘Cārvī is buddhi. Due to his association with it (intelligence), the teacher, too, is called Cārvī. He establishes the principles of the Lokāyata-sāstra (the science of Lokāyata) with the help of reason. Thus, he is respected and worshipped by his disciples.’2

One, however, cannot be sure whether the word, lokāyata, here stands for the science of disputation (vitandāśāstra, as in all Pali and Buddhist Sanskrit works) or the Cārvāka system of philosophy.3 But the word definitely refers to a system based on reason.

Max Müller was misled again due to a further misprint: cārva, a meaningless word, for cārvi, ‘intelligence’. He took cārva to be a namesake of Buddha.

II. The Debt of the Mimāmsā‚ and Nyāya-Vaiśesika to the Cārvāka

Ember Krishnamacharya, editor of the editio princeps of Śantaraksita’s Tattvasangraha (eighth century CE), notices a number of verses that are taken verbatim from Kumārilabhatta’s works (seventh or eighth century CE).4 Kumārila was a Mīmāmsaka and a staunch opponent of the Buddhists. The editor, however, failed to notice four verses in Chapter 22 that deal with the Lokāyata. Satkari Mookherjee was the first to point out: ‘The entire argument put in the mouth of the materialist [in Tattvasangraha] is boldly taken mutatis mutandis from Kumārila’s Śloka-vārtika. The Ślokās from 1865 to 1868 are reproduced verbatim and Sls. [Śloka-­s] 1869 to 1871 are but a summarized version of Kumārila’s Ślokās 59-­64 and 69­-73, Atmavāda, S.V. [Slokavartika], pp.703-07 5

Recently Eli Franco has observed, ‘It seems that the most orthodox and the heterodox schools [sc. the Mīmāmsā‚ and the Cārvāka] have joined forces to criticize the Buddhists.... Yet the question arises whether these are Mimāmsā arguments adopted by the Cārvāka or vice versa.6 He takes Kumārila to be the debtor. Santaraksita, too, knew them to be Cārvāka arguments but found it ‘easier...to quote them in an already versified form’7 (as done by Kumārila).

Mookherjee also notes that Sriharsa, a tenth-century Nyāya-Vaiśesika philosopher, ‘employs similar arguments to prove the impossibility of metempsychosis [= rebirth] in the Buddhist theory of Soul or rather no­-Soul.’8 He further says, ‘We are tempted to believe that Sriharsa has borrowed his arguments from Kumārila whom he quotes with great respect in other places.’9

It appears then that both the Mīmāmsā and the Nyāya-Vaiśesika schools, in their polemics against the Buddhists, borrowed some of their weapons from the Cārvāka arsenal. Kumārila took them first and Sriharsa in his turn took them from Kumārila.

III. Cārvāka in a work on poetics

An interesting reference to the Cārvāka occurs in Locana by Abhinavagupta (tenth / eleventh century CE). It is a commentary on Anandavardhana’s influential book (itself a commentary) on poetics, Dhvanyāloka (ninth century CE). Anandavardhana says that words in poetry have a two­fold meaning: the stated one (vācya) and the suggested (pratiyamāna) one.10 Defending this approach, Abhinavagupta writes that the concept of two­fold meaning is necessary, for ‘discerning critics decide that it (the suggested meaning) should be the very soul of poetry.’11 Then he adds: ‘But those whose minds are confused due to its intimate association with the aspect of “the stated meaning” start doubting its separate existence, even as the Cārvākas who doubt the separate existence of an entity like the soul apart from the body.’

The Cārvāka theory of the self (soul) is that it is inseparable from the body. So long as the body is alive, consciousness, cognition, etc. are to be found accompanying it. The soul, unlike what the idealist philosophers say, cannot exist without a substratum, that is, the body. Abhinavagupta cleverly refers to this concept.

Both Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta were Kashmirians. Udbhata Bhatta, a Cārvāka philosopher, also belonged to Kashmir (if he is the same Udbhata mentioned in Kalhana’s Rājatarangini)12 Abhinavagupta’s reference to the Cārvākas also disproves Rhys Davids’ view (if further evidence to disprove it is at all required) that there was no school of thought or a system of philosophy called the Lokāyata, although all writers from Kumārila and Sankaracarya to Sayana-Madhava (fourteenth century) use the name, Lokāyata and Lokāyatika, as “mere hobby­horses, pegs on which certain writers can hang the views that they impute to their adversaries, and give them, in doing so, an odious name.”13

IV. Ajita Kesakambala: A belated appearance

The earliest verses attributed to the Cārvāka / Lokāyata are found quoted in two commentaries on a work by the Buddhist philosopher, Nāgārjuna (second century CE).14 The verses run as follows:

“Man (purusa) consists of only as much as is within the scope of the senses. What the vastly learned ones speak of (as true) in but similar to (the statement): ‘Oh! Blessed one! Look at the footprints of the wolf.’15

‘Oh! the fair one, possessing beautiful eyes! Drink and eat. Oh! The one with a charming body! That which is past does not belong to you. Oh! The timid one! The past never comes back. This body is only a collectivity [of the four natural elements, namely, earth, air, fire and water].’ ”16

The story behind these verses has been told by the commentators of the Haribhadra’s Sad-darsana-samuccaya.17

What has so far gone unnoticed is that in their commentaries on Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamaka-sāstra, Buddhapalita (fifth century CE), Bhavaviveka (fifth / sixth century) and Candrakirti (sixth / seventh century) refer to the materialist doctrine18 but, instead of referring to any Cārvāka aphorism or verse, all of them go back to the words of Ajita Kesakambala, a senior contemporary of the Buddha. Thus we have the Sanskrit version of the beginning of a passage that is attributed to Ajita in a Pali Sutta: ‘This world does not exist, the other world does not exist. There is no effect of good and evil deeds, there is no result. There is no self-created being, etc.’19

The passage needs some explanation. The first sentence does not mean that Ajita denies the reality of this world. It simply suggests that performance of religious duties yields no result either in this world or in the next. That is to say, contrary to the assurance given in the Dharmasastras, sacrifices, etc. ensure neither wealth and wellbeing in this world (abhyudaya) nor the summum bonum, liberation (nihsreyasa).20

In the last sentence the words translated as ‘self-created being’ are sattva upapāduka in the original. ‘According to Buddhist belief, living beings are divided by their mode of birth into four classes: those born of the egg such as birds, some snakes, etc.; those born of moist heat such as insects, etc.; those born of the womb such as mammals and men; and those born of themselves such as gods, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Cakravartins, hell-dwellers, etc.’21

In short, then, Ajita denies the existence of all gods as well as the efficacy of performing rituals.

Buddhapalita and others elected to go back to the earlier, proto-materialist doctrine rather than the doctrine that developed the materialist view anew.22

V. Tracing an Unidentified Verse

It has been shown that the Visnudharmottara Mahāpurāna is the source of the famous verse attributed to the Cārvākas, ‘So long as there is life, live happily’ (yavaj jivam sukham jivet), etc.23 A part of this couplet was changed by Sāyana-Mādhava, the Vedantin (fourteenth century) to read: ‘Drink clarified butter (even) by borrowing’ (rnam krtva ghrtam pivet) while in all other sources (both before and after Sayana Madhava) it reads: ‘Nothing is beyond the reach of death’ (nāsti mrtyor agocarah). In the Mahāpurāna, the couple of lines, however, does not constitute a stanza (sloka) by itself. They are the second and first lines of two consecutive stanzas.24

Another such couple of lines has been quoted from the same source (Visnudharmottara Mahāpurāna) in three later works.25 The couplet, as before, originally formed the second and first lines of two consecutive stanzas. They run as follows:

‘Penances are only various forms of torment, and abstinence in merely depriving oneself of the pleasure of life. The rituals of agnihotra, etc. appear only to be child’s play.’26

It cannot be ascertained whether the author of the Visnudharmottara Māhapurāna quoted it from another source (oral or written) or composed the lines himself. In any case, the Cārvāka view seems to have been reflected in these lines although the author of the Mahāpurāna was as much opposed to materialism as the later writers who quoted these lines.

VI. Bhāguri or Bhāgurī?

B. N. Puri in his study on Patañjali (second century CE) writes:

The Lokāyatas were not unknown in that period. Patañjali refers to Bhaguri as a famous exponent of this school who provided specimens of the Lokāyata doctrines according to his views (varnikā Bhāguri Lokāyatasya), or way of life (vārtika Bhāguri lokāyatsya). 27

On the basis of this interpretation Puri concludes: “The name of the founder of this school – Cārvāka is not mentioned by the Bhasyakara‚ra (sc. Patañjali), but his philosophy was well-known.”

It is rather odd that Puri did not notice that the name is not Bhaguri, but Bhaguri„ in Kielhorn’s edition as also in the two commentaries by Kaiyata and Nagesabhatta, who explain the word as tikāvisesah and Lokāyatasāstrasya vyākhyanarupo granthaviseseah, a commentary on the Lokāyatasāstra.28

Monier-Williams mentions both Bhaguri and Bhaguri, the first, meaning the name of a person, the second, of a work. So there is no reason to confuse the two, yet Puri and many others have made this mistake. 29

Incidentally it may be observed that this Lokāyatasastra most probably is not a book of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata school but rather a work of the art and science of disputation, or tarkasāstra, noted in the Kautiliya Arthasāstra.30

Notes and References

1. Varanasi: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1971 reprint of the second posthumous edition of 1903, p. 99. Max Müller refers to Kāśikā by Vāmana­-Jayāditya, ed. Bāla Śāstri [Varanasi: Medical Hall, 1898]. 

2. Since Bāla Śāstri’s edition is not easily available, readers may consult any available edition of Kāśikā, for example, the one edited by Nārāyana Misra (Varanasi: Chowkhamba, 1969) or another ed. Raghuvir Vedālankar (Delhi: Prācyavidyāpratisthānam, 1997). See also V. S. Agarwal, Indian as known to Panini, Lucknow: University of Lucknow, 1953, p. 393. 

3. See Ramkrishna Bhattacharya, ‘On Lokāyata and Lokāyatana in Buddhist Sanskrit’, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. LXXIX, 1998, pp. 231­-235 and ‘The Significance of Lokāyata in Pali’, Journal of the Department of Pali, University of Calcutta, Vol. 10, 2000, pp. 39­46. See also ‘Lokāyata and Lokāyatana in Sanskrit Dictionaries’, Indian Skeptic, Vol. 12, No.11, March 2000, pp. 15­-18. All are now included in my Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Firenze: Societa Editrice Fiorentina, 2009. 

4. Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1926, Vol. 2, Appendixes, pp. 83­97. The text has been translated into English by Ganganath Jha, published by the same publisher in 1937­39. Both the text and translation have been reprinted in 1968 and 1986 respectively (the latter has been brought out by Motilal Banasridass (MLBD), Delhi). Pandit Dvarikadasa Shastri has also published the text (Varanasi: Bauddha Vihāra, 1968, reprinted in 1981). The number of verses is one short of the Baroda edition. 

5. The Buddhist Philosophy of Universal Flux, Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1935, p. 204 n2 (reprinted by MLBD, Delhi, 1975). 

6. Dharmakirti on Compassion and Rebirth, Wien (Vienna): Arbeitkreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien. Universität Wien, 1997, p. 100. 

7. Ibid, p. 101. 

8. Mookherjee (n5), p. 204 n2. 

9. Ibid. 

10. Dhvanyāloka and Locana, ed. Kuppuswamy Sastri and others, Madras: The Kuppuswamy Sastri Research Institute, 1944, Uddyota ONE, pp. 88-­89. 

11. Ibid. I have quoted from the translation by K. Krishnamoorthy (with some modifications). See Abhinavagupta’s Dhvanyāloka­-Locana, New Delhi: Mahendra Lachmandas Publications, 1988, pp. 98-­99. 

12. See ‘Udbhata’, New Catalogus Catalogorum. Vol. Two, ed. V. Raghavan, Madras: University of Madras, 1966, p. 31, referring to Rājatarangini, 4. 495. 

13. T. W. Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, Vol. 1, Oxford, 1899, p. 166. C. Bendall pointed out in 1900 that Rhys Davids was mistaken in saying so (Athenaeum, 30 June, 1900). 

14. The Madhyamakaśāstra of Nāgārjuna with Akutobhaya, an auto­-commentary by Nāgārjuna, Madhyamakavrtti by Buddhapālita, Prajñāpradipa by Bhāvaviveka, and Prasannapadāvrtti by Candrakirti, ed. Raghunath Pandeya, Delhi: MLBD, in two vols., 1988-­89. The two commentaries mentioned in the text refer to the last two. 

15. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 3 (on 16. 1), 64­65 (on 18.6). Bhāvaviveka alone quotes both, Candrakirti only the first one. It is to be regretted that Pandeya, the editor of the work, while restoring the first verse in Bhāvaviveka’s commentary from its Tibetan translation to Sanskrit (the original text is lost) wrote loko’yam instead of puruso. This is totally unwarranted. The Tibetan version has skyes-­bu (203 b8 and 232 b6) which cannot but be purusah. 

The verse occurs in many other writings but Haribhadra (and following him, Rājasekharasuri and a few others) wrote loko’yam (which Pandeya remembered): everyone else wrote puruso. (For all relevant sources see the article mentioned in n17 below).

Pandeya also failed to discern that the next two lines in the Tibetan translation (203 b8­204 al and 232 b7­8) constitute a verse, and so he printed them as prose.

16. This verse is also found (with minor variants) in Haribhadra’s Sad-darsana-samuccaya (v. 82), Silanka’s commentaries on the Acaranga ­and Sutra-krtangasutra-s, and Rajasekharasuri’s Sad-darsana-samuccaya. 

17. Parable of the Wolf’s Footprints’, Indian Skeptic, Vo,. 12, May 1999, pp. 31­36. and its revised and enlarged version in Jain Journal, 36: 3 (January 2002), pp. 134­48.The latter is now included in my Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Firenze: Societa Editrice Fiorentina, 2009. 

18. See Madhyamakasastra (n14), Vol. 2, pp. 60, 63­64, 66 (on 18. 5­7). 

19. Sāmañña­-phala-­sutta’, Digha Nikāya, ed. J. Kashyap, Patna: Pali Publication Board (Bihar Government). Part I. 1958, p. 48. In the Pali Sutta there is another clause before the last one: ‘There is no father, there is no mother’ which is omitted by Buddhapālita and others. 

20. A detailed discussion will be found in my ‘Ajita Kesakambala: Nihilist or Materialist?’ The Journal of the Asiatic Society, Vol. XLI, No. 1, 1999, pp. 74­83. It is included in my Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Societa Editrice Fiorentina, Firenze, 2009. 

21. Claus Vogel, The Teachings of the Six Heretics, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1970, p. 21 n9. Vogal refers to Nāgārjuna’s Dharmasamgraha and anon., Mahabutpatti as his authorities. For a different interpretation of the term, upapaduka, see Graeme Macqueen, A Study of the Sramanyaphala-sutra, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1988, p. 39 n65. 

22. No Cārvāka/Lokāyata fragment so far available echoes the words of Ajita as found in the Pali Sutta. It strengthens the view that the Cārvāka/Lokāyata did not originate from Ajita’s circle in the fifth century BCE but developed later independently. There is no evidence to support the continuity of the materialist tradition from Ajita to the compilation of the Cārvāka­-sutra (or the Paurandara­sutra). Erich Frauwallner, too, has made a distinction between ‘The oldest materialist doctrines’ (represented in his opinion by Purana, Ajita and Kakuda) and ‘The Lokāyata System’ (which, he believes, arose in the pre­-Christian period, founded by Cārvāka). See his History of Indian Philosophy, Delhi: MLBD, Vol. 2, 1997, pp. 219­221. Eli Franco and Karin Preisendanz have followed him in this regard in their article on the Indian School of materialism in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig, London: Routledge, 1998, Vol. 6, p. 179 (‘Early materialists’ and ‘The classical materialistic philosophy’). 

23. See my article, “ rnam krtva ghrtam pibet’—Who said this?”, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Vol. XIV, No. 1, September-­December, 1996, pp. 170­74. For some additional sources see ibid., Vol. XVII, No.1, Sept.­-Dec., 1999, p. 76. This is now included in my Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Firenze: Societa Editrice Fiorentina, 2009. 

24. Visnudharmottara Mahapurana, I. 108. 18cd­-19ab. Bombay: Ksemaraja Srikrishnadasa, Saka 1834, f. 70. 

25. See Haribhadra, Lokatattvanirnaya, Ahmedabad: Sri Hamsavijayaji Jain Free Library, Vikramasamvat 1978, verse 34, f. 25a (reads bhogavañcanah (sic!) in the second pada); Jayantabhatta, Agamatambara, III. 9, eds. V. Raghavan and Anantalal Thakur, Darbhanga: Mithila Vidyapith, 1964, p. 57 (reads –vañcanam) and Gunaratna, Tarka-­rahasya-­dipika‚, ed. Luigi Siali, Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1905­1914, p. 302, verse 1 (misprinted as 2) (reads yatna­-for yatana­, samgama for samyama and vañcana). The verse originally occurs in the Visnudharmottara Mahapurana (n24 above), I. 108. 14cd-­15ab, p. 70. 

26. I quote the translation from Cārvāka/Lokāyata ed. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya in collaboration with Mrinal Kanti Gangopadhyaya, New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 1990, p. 269. 

27. B. N. Puri, India in the Time of Patañjali, New Delhi: Mushiram Manoharlal, 1990, p. 178. 

28. F. Kielhorn (ed.), The Vyakarana­-mahabhasya of Patañjali, Vol. III, Bombay, 1909, p. 325­-326 (on Astadhyayi 7. 3. 45 (7), (8)); Vyakaranamahabhasya with Kaiyata’s Pradipa and Nagesabhatta’s Uddyota, Part III, Delhi: MLBD, 1967, p.210. 

29. Monier Monier-­Williams, A Sanskrit-­English Dictionary, (1899), Delhi: MLBD, 2002, p. 752, column 1, bottom. 

30. The Kautiliya Arthasastra, Part I, ed. R. P. Kangle, Bombay: University of Bombay, 1965, 1.2.10. For a detailed discussion, see Ramkrishna Bhattacharya, Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Firenze: Societa Editrice Fiorentina, 2009, pp. 131-­36. 

Acknowledgements: Amitava Bhattacharya, Rinku Chowdhury, Sanjit Sadhukhan. 

This paper was published in Tulsi Prajna (Ladnun) 38:152, July-December 2011

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.

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