History of Indian Materialism

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya

There are two ways of reading philosophy: Philosophical-doctrinal and Historical-textcritical. The first approach does not pay much attention to the growth and development of a philosophical system and treats the doctrine as a whole. The second approach, on the other hand, studies a philosophical system from its inception through further developments till it ceases to grow or stops at a state when it is still growing. The two approaches should be considered complementary, not contradictory. I propose to follow the second approach in order to get a more comprehensive view of a system. .

The history of materialism in India is much older than the Cārvāka, also known as Lokāyata. Two doctrines, bhūta and svabhāva, are mentioned in the Śvetāśvatara Upanisad (not later than third century BCE). Both the names are associated with the later developments of materialism. In the early centuries of the common era there were several pre-Cārvāka materialist views in South India as mentioned in the old Tamil epics.

The word cārvāka as the name or nickname of a system of philosophy as also of its followers is not encountered before the eighth century CE. The other name, Lokāyata, in the Buddhist tradition (both Pali and Sanksrit, Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna) does not mean materialism: it signifies Vitandāśāstra, the art of disputation. By the eighth century the two names, Cārvāka and Lokāyata, along with another, Bārhaspatya (relating to Brhaspati, the mythical guru of the gods) are used interchangeably to signify materialism. Another oft-used term, nāstika, means the denier of the other-world but also the defiler of the Veda (and many more). In the first sense the Cārvākas alone are to be called so, but the same word is employed against the Buddhists and the Jains in the second sense. The names mentioned by the opponents of materialism, such as dehātmavāda, bhūtacaitanyavāda, tajjīva-taccharīravāda, and the like, are used mainly to suggest the Cārvāka/Lokāyata.

There was at least one base (mūla) text of the Cārvākas, a collection of aphorisms (sūtras) attributed to Purandara. There were several commentaries, no fewer than five, on this or some other base text. They were composed by Aviddhakarna, Udbhata Bhatta (Bhattodbhata), Kambalāśvatara, Purandara, and Bhāvivikta. Extracts from the commentaries of the first four are found in the works of the Brahminical, Buddhist and Jain opponents of materialism. There are reasons to believe that there were other commentators of the Cārvākasūtra too.

At the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to be definite about the origin and growth of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata. However, it can be asserted that it was a living philosophy from the eighth century CE to the twelfth century CE after which this system seems to have disappeared without leaving any trace. The reason for this sudden disappearance is not known. It is nevertheless certain that when Sāya a-Mādhava compiled his digest of all philosophies (Sarva-darśana-samgraha) in the fourteenth century CE, he had no Cārvāka/Lokāyata text to quote from, or even refer to.

The earliest known materialist (rather proto-materialist) is Ajita Kesakambala, a senior contemporary of the Buddha (sixth/fifth century BCE). After a long gap, in the early Common Era we have the mention of three materialist schools in the Tamil epic, Manimēkalai (between the fourth century and the seventh century CE). It is only in the eighth century CE that Kamalaśīla quotes a few Cārvāka aphorisms verbatim in his commentary on the Tattvasamgraha, a polemical work written by his preceptor, Śāntaraksita. In several Brahminical, Buddhist and Jain works (written between the eighth century and the twelfth century CE) more such aphorisms are quoted. They are concerned mostly with the following issues:

a) The first cause (jagat-kārana)

b) Relation of consciousness to matter

c) Nature of the spirit or self or soul (ātman )

d) Rebirth and the other-world (paraloka)

e) Efficacy of the performance of sacrificial rites (yajña)

f) The valid instrument(s) of cognition (pramāna)

All the items mentioned above were controversial. A sharp line was thus drawn between idealism and materialism, on both ontological and epistemological grounds. It is evident that the Cārvāka/Lokāyata epistemology was tailor-made to defend its ontological positions.

Since our knowledge of materialism in India is derived wholly from the works of its opponents, it is difficult to be certain about the social and ethical outlook of the materialists. The charge of hedonism brought against the Cārvāka/Lokāyata appears to have no basis, for no aphorism is quoted by the antagonists which they do when they try to refute other views of the Cārvākas . The one verse found at the end of the Sarva-darśana-samgraha (SDS), chapter 1, which urges people to drink clarified butter even by incurring debt (mam krtvā ghrtam pibet) is a gross distortion of the original reading of the half-line, “nothing is beyond the ken of death” (nāsti mrtyor agocarah). The first reading is found in only one instance, the SDS; in thirteen other occurrences of this verse there is no mention of either borrowing or of clarified butter. Amusingly enough, in the SDS, the original version is quoted first at the beginning of the chapter but at the end the distorted version is offered. If Krsnamiśra and Śrīharsa are to be believed, the Cārvākas were opposed to gender discrimination and casteism (see the Prabodha-candrodaya, Act 2 verse 18 and the Nai adha-carita, Canto 17 verses 40, 42, and 58).

A few verses of doubtful origin have been attributed to the Cārvākas in several compendia and digests of philosophy. Some of them oppose animal sacrifice and flesh-eating and may be of Buddhist and/or Jain origin. Other verses that deny the alleged result achieved by performing post-mortem rites may genuinely reflect the materialist view. The thrust is no doubt anti-Vedic, or rather against the religious acts ordained by the canonical law- books (dharmaśāstras). But it is doubtful whether such an attitude was the focus of the materialist tradition in India. More probably the anti-religious attitude was the logical corollary of its epistemology and ontology.

At least one parable, the parable of the wolf’s footprint, is of pre-Cārvāka origin, as it is alluded to in the Mahābhārata (Mbh) (critical edition, 12.132.2; vulgate edition, 12.134.2). The parable was supposed to teach a moral: inference unsupported by perception may lead to wrong conclusions. The parable, however, has been widely used both by the Buddhists and the Jains to represent the Cārvāka view. Some other verses (such as viśese’nugamābhāvāt sāmānye siddhasādhanāt, etc., ‘No concomitance being possible in the case of the particular and there being the charge of “proving the proved” in the case of the universal’, etc.) representing the epistemological position of the Cārvākas may reflect the view of one or the other Cārvāka philosopher but such versified versions appear to have been composed by their critics while representing the opponent’s view (pūrvapaksa). They may not be verbatim quotations.

The verses attributed to the Cārvākas, in any case, could not have been the pivot of the Cārvāka system. Like many other philosophical systems in India the Cārvāka/Lokāyata too developed along the line of a base text followed by its commentaries and sub- commentaries. The verses are mere popular sayings (ābhānaka and lokagāthā) passing from mouth to mouth, generation after generation till they were written down.  

There are, however, reasons to believe that the pre-Cārvāka materialist views too were orally transmitted. The epistemological position was not stated clearly and unambiguously: only the ontological views were declared, mostly in terms of a series of negations, such as: no soul without the body, no after-life and no after-world, no merit in performing sacrificial rites and in paying gifts to Brāhmins, etc. The epistemological grounds of these views were first formulated by the school that came to be known first as the Lokāyata (and then as the Cārvāka) somewhere around the sixth century CE. To search for any unbroken thread from Ajita Kesakambala to Bhattodbhata (the last known commentator) will not bear fruit, for there are so much of temporal gap and so many missing links between the proto-materialist ideas and the base text (as well as the commentaries thereon) which came to replace all earlier materialist views. Purandara is said to have been the author of a sūtra-work as well as of a vrtti (exposition, most probably an auto-commentary). There are other commentators like Aviddhakar a who may have been Naiyāyikas writing commentaries on the Cārvākasūtra without being converted to materialism.

 

There is no way of knowing whether the materialists had a large following in either South India or elsewhere. Nevertheless, materialism as a system of philosophy was considered a formidable adversary by all the orthodox (Vedic) schools, such as Vedānata and Nyāya-Vaiśesika, as well as by the heterodox (anti-Vedic) schools, such as the Buddhist and the Jain. In the centuries of great debate, between the eighth century and the twelfth century, the Cārvāka/Lokāyata has been criticized, slandered, and ridiculed not only in philosophical literature but also in poetry and drama. This is an indication of the great weight and potential worth of materialism in the Indian philosophical tradition.

What is badly needed now is a philosophical map and a time-chart, however tentative they may be, to locate and ascertain where and when so many philosophical systems in India arose and spread to other regions at which points of time. A particular variety of Śaivite philosophy originated in Kashmir; the Pāśupata doctrine owes its birth to South India, and Navya Nyāya spread from Mithilā to the Navadvīpa region of South Bengal as late as the fifteenth century. Prābhākara Mīmāmsā, which was predominant in Rādha (a part of southern Bengal) at least in the tenth century thus lost its ground. Similar instances will be found in other parts of India too. Kāśī (Varanasi) was long known to be the place of confluence of all philosophical systems, at least the pro-Vedic ones. Buddhist philosophy flourished mainly in upper India, although there were adherents in South India as well. Jain philosophy had its centre in Western India, particularly in Gujerat and Rajasthan. Only when the map is drawn and the time-chart is prepared we shall be able to envisage the whole philosophical scene properly.

Reading List:

Besides the histories of Indian philosophy by S. N. Dasgupta, Jadunath Sinha, and Erich Frauwallner, the following books are to be consulted:

Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. Lokāyata. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1959 (often reprinted).

Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. In Defence of Materialism in Ancient India. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1989.

Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya and Mrinal Kanti Gangopadhyaya. Cārvāka/Lokāyata. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 1990.

Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. Bhārate Vastuvāda Prasa ge. Kolkata: Anushtup, 1993 (recently reprinted).

Dakshinaranjan Shastri. Cārvāka Darśana. Kolkata: Paschimbanga Rajya Pustak Parsat, 1982.

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya. Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata. Firenze (Florence): Societa Editrice Fiorentina, 2009; New Delhi: Manohar Books, 2010.

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya. Cārvākacarcā. Kolkata: Sadesh, 2010.

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya taught English at the University of Calcutta, Kolkata and was an Emeritus Fellow of University of Grants Commission. He is now a Fellow of Pavlov Institute, Kolkata.

  (This paper was presented on 16th December 2011 in a workshop in New Delhi)

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Premanand Memorial Lecture

The 3rd Premanand Memorial Lecture organized by Science Trust, Kozhikode, Kerala will be held on January 22, 2012 at Nalanda Auditorium, Kozhikode. We give below the programme schedule mailed to us by Sajit C, an office bearer of the Trust.

The 5^th Anniversary of Science Trust & the 3^rdPremanand Memorial Lecture

On Sunday, the 22^nd January 2012  at Nalanda Auditorium,  Calicut

Schedule

9 am: Registration

10 am: Study Class

Topic: Pseudo Science, Quackery, Rationalism

Conducted by

Prof. Narendra Nayak, Dr Viswanathan C & Dr. Shibukumar T M

1 pm to 2 pm: Meal time

2 pm: Open Forum

4 pm: Valedictory Session

Inauguration: Dr. B. Iqbal

Premanand Memorial Lecture

Anand

Renowned Malayalam Writer

Subject

Ariyunna Kadhakalum Ariyaatha Kadhakalum 

(Stories we know and Stories we know not)

Followed by speeches by Kureepuzha Sreekumar  & Prof. Ravichandran C.

6.30 pm: Video Show

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On Lokayata Philosophy

Rhys Davids

(From the introduction to the English translation of the Kutadanta Sutta; Dialogues of the Buddha - page 166-172, London, 1889)

T. W. Rhys Davids

There is a curious expression in the stock phrase describing the learned Brahman, so often found in the Piṭakas, which I have left untranslated in this Sutta, being uncertain as to the meaning in which it was used at the time when our Sutta was composed. It will be instructive, in more ways than one, to collect and consider the other passages in which the word occurs.

Lokāyata is explained by Wilson as `the system of atheistical philosophy taught by Cārvāka,1 and by the Petersburg Dictionary as `Materialism'. Now the description of the good Brahman as put, in the Buddhist Suttas, into the mouth of Brahmans themselves,2 mentions Lokāyata as one branch of his learning. The whole paragraph is complimentary. And though the exact connotation of one or two of the other terms is doubtful, they are all descriptive of just those things which a Brahman would have been rightly proud to be judged a master of. It is evident, therefore, that the Dictionary interpretations of the word are quite out of place in this connection.

Yet they are each of them, at least for a later period, well authenticated. Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, in his Vārttika (verse 10), charges the Mīmāṃsā system with having been, for the most part, converted into a Lokāyata system, and claims for his own book the merit of bringing it back to theistic lines.3 Now of course the Mīmāṃsists would indignantly deny this. Kumārila, who seems to have been a good deal of a bigot, is here merely hurling at adversaries, who claimed to be as orthodox as himself, a term of abuse. But it is clear that he uses that term in the sense of `atheistic.' The exact phrase would be nāstika, as opposed to his own āstika-patha: that is, the system or the man who says `there is not,' an infidel. This is somewhat wider than atheist; it comes however, in Kumārila's mouth, to much the same thing.

Saṅkarācārya uses the word lokāyata several times, 4 and always in the same specific sense as the view of those who look upon the soul as identical with the body, as existing only so long as the body exists, not continuing, after death, in a new condition and separate from the body. A very similar, if not indeed the very same view is also controverted in the Brahmajāla Sutta (above, P. 46); and is constantly referred to throughout the Piṭakas under the stock phrase taṃ jīvaṃ taṃ sarīraṃ.5 But it is never called Lokāyata in the Piṭakas. It seems to be the view that there is a soul; but that it is diffused through the body, and dies with it; and is not a separate unity, within the body but not of it, which flies away from the body after death. It is not necessary to suppose that either. Saṅkara or the Buddhists had in their minds any book setting forth a philosophy based on this single proposition, or any actual school using such a book as a manual. It may have been so. But the expressions used point rather to an opinion held by certain thinkers, in union with other opinions, and not expounded in any special treatise. Nor do either the Buddhists or úaṅkara pretend to set out that opinion in full. They are dealing with it only so far as is necessary to enforce their own contrary positions. And though `materialist,' as a rough and ready translation of. Saṅkara's Lokāyatika, gives a good idea, to a European reader, of the sort of feeling conveyed to Saṅkara's Indian readers, yet it is not quite exact. European `materialists' (and one or two may be discovered by careful search) do not hold the view which úaṅkara describes to his Lokāyatikas.

Buddhaghosa in our passage has: Lokāyataṃ vuccati vitaṇḍa-vāda-satthaṃ, `the Lokāyata is a text-book of the Vitaṇḍas (Sophists) 6 This does not help us much; but previously, p. 91, he explains Lokakkhāyikā as follows: `Foolish talk according to the Lokāyata, that is the Vitaṇḍa, such as: “By whom was this world created? By such a one. A crow is white from the whiteness of its bones; cranes are red from the redness of their blood.”

Other Pāli comments on the word are the Abhidhāna Padīpikā (verse 112), which says simply, probably following Buddhaghosa: Vitaṇḍa-satthaṃ viññeyyaṃ yaṃ taṃ lokāyataṃ. The date of this work is, the middle of the twelfth century A. D. Much clearer is Aggavaṃsa in the Sadda-nīti, which is a generation older. He says: 7

Loko ti bāla-loko; ettha āyatanti ussāhanti vāyamanti vādassādenāti lokāyataṃ. Ayatati vā tena loko, na yatati na īhati vā, lokāyataṃ. Taṃ hi gandhaṃ nissāya sattā puñña-kiriyāya. kittaṃ na uppadenti. Lokāyataṃ. nāma: sabbaṃ Ucchiṭṭhaṃ sabbaṃ anucchiṭṭhaṃ seto kāko kāḷo bako iminā va iminā va kāranenāti evam-ādi-niratthaka-karaṃa-paṭisaṃyuttaṃ titthiya-satthaṃ, yaṃ loke Vitaṇḍasatthaṃ vuccati, yaṃ sandhāya Bodhisatto asamadhuro Vidhūra-paṇḍito:

Na seve Lokāyatikaṃ, n'etaṃ puññāya vaḍḍhanaṃ ti āha.

`Loko means the common world. Lokāyata means: “on that they āyatanti;” that is, they exert themselves about it, strive about it, through the pleasure they take in discussion. Or perhaps it means: “the world does not yatati by it”; that is, does not depend on it, move on by it. For living beings do not stir up their hearts to right-doing by reason of that book. 8 Now the Lokāyata is the book of the unbelievers (of the Titthiyas) full of such useless disputations as the following: “All is impure; all is not impure; the crow is white, the crane is black; and for this reason or for that”—the book known in the world as the Vitaṇḍa-sattha, of which the Bodisat, the incomparable leader, Vidhūra the pandit, said:

“Follow not the Lokāyata, that works not for progress in merit.”

The verse quoted—certainly a very old one—is in the Vidhūra Jātaka, 9 and the commentator there says: `This means: Follow not Lokāyata disputation, Vitaṇḍa chatter, concerned with useless matters which neither give paradise nor lead men on into the Path.'

Saṅkara says: `There is thus, according to them, no soul, separate from the body, and capable of going to the heavenly world or obtaining release.' 10 The unknown author of the Jātaka commentary, who certainly wrote however in the fifth century, gives the allied proposition as his own conclusion from the uselessness of their discussions, not as the opinion of the Lokāyatikas themselves. It would be an easy transition from the one expression to the other. And the difference is suggestive, especially in the light of other passages in both Sanskrit and Pāli books.

For while the Mahābhārata has precisely the same use of the word as the Piṭakas, later works use it in a manner approximating more and more nearly to that of Saṅkara. The passage in the Mahābhārata is at I, 2889 (= Hari Vaṃsa 14068), where, at the end of a list of the accomplishments of learned Brahmans, they are said to be masters of the Lokāyata. Being mentioned, as in our passage, at the end of the list, it is plain that this branch of learning is meant to be taken as of minor importance. But it is not yet considered unfavourably, much less opprobiously. And the Petersburg Dictionary, from which I take most of these references, points out that the word may possibly, in this passage, have some other meaning than `Materialism.'

The Rāmāyaṇa goes further. There the word is also in a list, but the Laukāyatikā are blamed as `clever in useless things.' 11 So in the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka, the good Mahāyānist does not serve or court or wait upon (among other low people) `the Lokāyatikas who know by heart the Lokāyata mantras (mystic verses).' 12 The date of this may be a century or two after Christ. And in the Gain book, entitled the Bhagavatī, which Weber puts at about the same time, the Lokāyatikas occur in a similar list of blameworthy persons. 13

In the Milinda, which is probably somewhat earlier, the word is mentioned twice. One passage ascribes a knowledge of the Lokāyata (in a sentence expanded from the very clause in our Sutta) to the hero of the story, Nāgasena.14 Here the Milinda is quite at the old standpoint. The other passage is in a parenthesis, 15 in which the sub-hero, the king, is described as `fond of wordy disputations, and in the habit of wrangling against the quibbles of Lokāyatas and Vitaṇḍas.' This may possibly be a gloss which has crept into the text. But in any case it is evidence that, at the time when it was written, the later view of the meaning of the word had become prevalent.

In the long list of various sorts of hermits given in the Harsha Carita the Lokāyatikas come among others who would be classed by Vedāntists as heretics. 16 We cannot, unfortunately, draw any certain conclusion as to whether or not there were actually any Lokāyatikas living in Bāṇa's time. In expanding previous descriptions of the concourse of hermits in the forest, he may be merely including in his list all the sorts of such people he had ever heard or read of.

Lastly, the Lokāyata system is, in various works of the fourteenth century and later, appropriately fathered on Cārvāka, a mythical character in the Mahābhārata, an ogre, who appears in the garb of a Brahman. 17 It is not certain whether this is due to the ingenuity of a friend or a foe. In either case, like the fathering of the later Sāṅkhya on the ancient sage Kapila; or the fathering of the collection of fables, made by Planudes in the fourteenth century A. D., upon Aesop the story-teller of the fifth century B. C., it has been eminently successful, has deceived many, and is still widely accepted.

Pending the discovery of other texts, and especially of such as are not only the testimony of opponents, the best working hypothesis to explain the above facts seems to be that about 500 B. C. the word Lokāyata was used in a complimentary way as the name of a branch of Brahman learning, and probably meant Nature-lore—wise sayings, riddles, rhymes, and theories handed down by tradition as to cosmogony, the elements, the stars, the weather, scraps of astronomy, of elementary physics, even of anatomy, and knowledge of the nature of precious stones, and of birds and beasts and plants. To be a master of such lore was then considered by no means unbecoming to a learned Brahman, though it ranked, of course, below his other studies. At that time there was no school so called, and no special handbook of such knowledge. But portions of it trenched so closely upon, were so often useful as metaphor in discussing the higher and more especially priestly wisdom, that we find sayings that may well have belonged to it preserved in the pre-Buddhistic literature. Such passages, for instance, as Bçi. Ār. Up. III, 8, 3, Chānd. Up. IV, 17, 1, and VI, 2-7, on the worlds and on cosmogony; Chānd. III. on the colour of the rays of the sun; Bçi. Ār. Up. II, 1, 5-7, and III, 7, 3-7, on the elements; Ait. Ār. III, 2, 1, 4, and others, on the parts of the body; and many others of a similar kind on these and other subjects might be cited as examples.

The amount then existing of such lore was too small to make a fair proficiency in it incompatible with other knowledge. As the amount of it grew larger, and several branches of natural science were regularly studied, a too exclusive acquaintance with Lokāyata became looked upon with disfavour. Even before the Christian era masters of the dark sayings, the mysteries, of such mundane lore were marked with sophists and casuists. This feeling is increasingly vouched for in the early centuries of our era. In the fifth century we hear of a book, presumably on the `riddles and mysteries of the craft, as it is called `a book of quibbles.' Various branches of mundane science had been by that time fairly well worked out. Lokāyata was still the name for the old Nature-lore, on the same level as folk-lore, and in contradistinction, not only to theosophy on the one hand, but to such science as there was on the other.

In the first half of the eighth century Kumārila uses the word as a mere term of abuse, and in the sense of infidel of his equally orthodox opponents, the Mīmāṃsists. And shortly afterwards Saṅkara, in setting forth his theory of the soul, controverts a curious opinion which he ascribes to Lokāyatikas—possibly wrongly, as the very same opinion was controverted ages before in the Piṭakas, and not there called Lokāyata, though the word was in use in Piṭaka times.

Finally in the fourteenth century the great theologian Sāyaṇa-Mādhava has a longish chapter in which he ascribes to the Lokāyatikas the most extreme forms of the let-us-eat-and-drink-for-tomorrow-we-die view of life; of Pyrrhonism in philosophy, and of atheism in theology. The Lokāyata had no doubt, at that time, long ceased to exist. His very able description has all the appearance of being drawn from his own imagination; and is chiefly based on certain infidel doggrel verses which cannot possibly have formed a part of the Lokāyata studied by the Brahmans of old. 18 It is the ideal of what will happen to the man of some intellect, but morally so depraved that he will not accept the theosophist position.

Throughout the whole story we have no evidence of any one who called himself a Lokāyatika, or his own knowledge Lokāyata. After the early use of the word in some such sense as Nature-lore, folk-lore, there is a tone of unreality over all the statements we have. And of the real existence of a school of thought, or of a system of philosophy that called itself by the name there is no trace. In the middle period the riddles and quibbles of the Nature-lorists are despised. In the last period the words Lokāyata, Lokāyatika, become mere hobby horses, pegs on which certain writers can hang the views that they impute to their adversaries, and give them, in doing so, an odious name.

NOTES

1. He gives as his authority, the Amara Koùa; but the Koùa merely mentions the word, in a list, without any explanation.  
2. Aṅguttara I, 163, and other passages. 
3. The passage is quoted in Muir's Sanskrit Texts,' III, 95.
4.  For instance in his commentary on the Brahma-Sūtra, I, 1, 2; II, 2, 2; III, 3, 53. 
5. For instance in the Mahāli and Jāliya Suttas, both translated below. 
6. Sum. I, 247. The Vitaṇḍas are quoted and refuted in the Attha Sālinī, pp. 3, 90, 92, 241 (where the word is wrongly spelt). 
7. Quoted sub voce in Subhūti's `Abbidhānappadīpikā Sūci' p. 310. According to the Sāsana Vaṃsa Dīpikā (Dr. Mabel Bode's edition, p. 74), he lived at Arimaddana in Burma in 1127 A. D. See also Sāsana Vaṃsa Dīpo, verse 1238; Gandha Vaṃsa, pp. 63, 67; Forchammer, `Jardine Prize Essay,' p. 34; J. P. T. S, 1882, p. 103. 
8. With this attempt at derivation may be compared Nīlakaṇṭha on the passage quoted below from the Mahābhārata (as given in B. R.), Loka evāyatante te lokayatikā. Also Prof. Cowell's suggestion (Sarvad. S., p. 2) that Lokāyata may be analysed etymologically as `prevalent in the world.' The exact meaning of āyata is really very doubtful. 
9. Fausb"ll's edition, VI, 286. No less than four bas reliefs, illustrating this Jātaka, have been found at the Bharhut Tope. See my `Buddhist Birth Stories,' p. cii. On the greater age of the verses, as compared with the prose, of the Jātakas, see ibid. lxxviii. 
10. Loc. cit. See Deussen, `Vedānta-system,' 310; and Thibaut, `Vedānta-Sutras,' II, 269. 
11. Gorresio's edition, II, 109, 29. Both these passages from the epics are from later portions of them. 
12. Chapter XIII, at the beginning. Burnouf (p. 168) reads tantras (instead of mantras), no doubt wrongly, and has a curious blunder in his note on the passage (P. 409). He says Lokāyata means in Pāli `fabulous history, romance'; and quotes, as his authority, the passage given above from the Abhidhāna Padīpikā, in which Lokāyataṃ is simply explained as vitaṇḍa-satthaṃ. This last expression cannot possibly mean anything of that sort. 
13. Weber, Ueber ein fragment der Bhagavatī, II, 248. 
14. My Milinda, I, 7. 
15. Ibid. I, 17. 
16. Cowell's Translation, p. 236. 
17. Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, Prabodhacandrodaya, Sarva-darùana saṃgraha. 
18. Sarva-darùana-saṃgraha, Chapter I, translated by Prof. Cowell in the version published in 1882.

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Fire Walking

B Premanand

Walking on Red Hot Coals Does Not Prove Anyone’s Chastity

Experiment – 17

Effect: Walking on red hot coals without the feet getting burnt

Props: A pit one foot broad (minimum), eight feet long and three inches deep.  At least 100 kg firewood, well dried and hard, kerosene, matches, metal leveler, two planks to blow off ash, one bamboo pole 6’ long, 2 kg salt crystals and water. Also, an antiseptic cream, such as Burnol, as a first aid.

Method: Make a it one foot across, 8’ long and 3’ deep. Stack the dry firewood in the middle of the pit, crisscrossed to allow air space between each piece. Pour kerosene around the firewood and light it.  It takes about two hours to get the firewood reduced to red hot coals.  Remove the unburnt wood with the help of the bamboo, and spread the coals evenly in the pit with the metal leveler.  Blow off the ash from the coal with the boards and sprinkle crystal salt particularly in the centre where you will be walking.  Walk swiftly with steady steps on the coal, without trying to jump or run.  You will be surprised to find that your feet do not burn.  Salt helps to attract moisture from the atmosphere, and also prevents formation of ash on the coal.  Watch for stone, metal pieces and glass pieces thrown on the coals. These could be dangerous if agent of godmen try to create problems on the sly.  Or if someone is pushed into the pit.

(Note: In the epic Ramayana, when Rama suspected his wife, Sita, of committing adultery, she had to walk on fire to prove her chastity. In the title of this article, Premanand refers to this episode - carvaka4india).

Factors that Prevent Burning

  Factors that act together to prevent the foot from burning

• Water has a very high specific heat capacity (4.184 kJ/K kg), whereas coals have a very low one. Therefore the foot's temperature tends to change less than the coal's.

• Water also has a high thermal conductivity, and on top of that, the rich blood flow in the foot will carry away the heat and spread it. On the other hand, coal has a poor thermal conductivity, so the hotter body consists only of the parts of the coal which are close to the foot.

• When the coal cools down, its temperature sinks below the flash point, so it stops burning, and no new heat is generated.

• Firewalkers do not spend very much time on the coals, and they keep moving.

• Calluses on the feet may offer an additional level of protection, even if only from pain; however, most people do not have calluses that would make any significant difference.

Risks involved when doing firewalking improperly

• People have burned their feet when they remained in the fire for too long, enabling the thermal conductivity of the coals to catch up.

• One is more likely to be burned when running through the coals since running pushes one's feet deeper into the embers, resulting in the top of the feet being burnt.

• Foreign objects in the coals may result in burns. Metal is especially dangerous since it has a high thermal conductivity.

• Coals which have not burned long enough can burn feet more quickly. Coals contain water, which increases their heat capacity as well as their thermal conductivity. The water must be evaporated already when the firewalk starts.

• Wet feet can cause coals to cling to them, increasing the exposure time.

(Text Courtesy: Wikipedia; Photos: Fire walking being exposed by rationalist activists at World Atheist Conference, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu in 2010; Photos by carvaka4india)

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Lokayata

Haraprasad Shastri

(This essay was published in Dacca University Bulletin, No.1, 1925)

Haraprasad Shastri

The Sarvadarsanasamgraha was published in the Bibliotheca Indica Series in 1858 under the editorship of Pandit Isvar Chandra Vidyasagara. The first chapter of this work contained an account of the Carvaka Darsana – a system of philosophy which believed neither in God nor in a future existence. But the most attractive feature of this account was the bold speculations of the system and the sarcastic tone it assumed against the cherished doctrines of Hindu Orthodoxy. Those were days of translations from Sanskrit into Bengali and the translation of the Sarvadarsnasamgraha was undertake by the most learned man of the time, Pandit Jayanarayana Tarkapancanana, Professor of Hindu Philosophy in the Sanskrit College, Calcutta. But that conscientious scholar soon found that the task was beyond him; He translated the Carvaka Darsana all right. But the next Darsana, the Buddhist and the Arhata, proved a stumbling block to him and he gave the work up in despair. But there was a bolder spirit among his pupils.  This was Pandit Mahes Candra Nyayaratna, then about thirty years of age.  He boldly translated the whole work and issued it in his own name, his Guru writing a forward on the translation, which gave Mahes Candra a name and I should say, a fortune.

This book early attracted my attention and I read not only the Bengali but also the Sanskrit. The versified portion of the account of the Carvaka I soon made my own.  Curiosity impelled me to look at other references to the Carvakas and I got one in the Seventeenth Canto of the Naisadhacarita – a work which was very popular in those days.  The tone of sarcasm was more bitter, but there was no new information.  References were found in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and in the Kavyas and Natakas, but information about the doctrines was very meager.

The Sarvadarsanasamgraha was written by Madhavacaryya in the second half of the fourteenth century, and the Naisadha, according to the Bombay editor, in the end of the twelfth century.  But the late lamented Pandit Vindhysvari Prasad Dube, in his Chronology of Nyaya works, says that Hira Pandit, the father of the author of Naisadha, was a contemporary and a rival of Udayana early in the eleventh century.  The Carvaka Darsana, when it is mentioned in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, must be older than them, and I began my search anew.  The result of the research is given below.

One of the six heretical teachers who were either older than or contemporary to the Buddha was Ajitakesakambali. He held a doctrine which was rank Materialism. He said that thee were four elements – earth, water, air, and fire – a combination of these in certain proportions and under certain circumstances produced vitality, and at death, earth went to earth, water to water, fire to fire, air to air and that vitality was gone.   Just as certain ingredients coming together produce the power of intoxication, so the elements came together and produced what is life. Life beyond this is a myth.  This body is atman. Atman is nothing beyond this body. Ajitakesakambali is regarded in some quarters as Carvaka.  But I suspend my judgment for the present until I have exhausted my references in Buddhist and Jaina literature – store-houses of information about the most productive period of Indian thought.

Ajitakesakambali must have lived either at the end of the seventh or he beginning of the sixth century BC, according to the date of Buddha’s nirvana in 543 or 483 BC.

Kautilya, in the fourth century BC, speaks of the Lokayatikas only once in his work, but the connection in which he speaks of them seems to indicate htat they had a system like that of the Samkhya and Yoga.

In the second century BC, Patanjali speaks of the Lokayatas and of Bhaguri as their Vartittika or supporter.

In the second century AD, Vatsyayana in his Kamasutra quotes a number of Lokayata sutras and refutes them.  These sutras relate to the desirability or otherwise of the study of Dharmasastras.  The Lokayata, who believes neither in Dharma nor in Adharma, says:

1. Religious rites should not be pracatised.
2. Because their fruition depends upon the future
3. And id doubtful
4. Who, unless he is a fool, gives away what belongs to him to others?
5. A  pigeon today is better than a peacock tomorrow.
6. A sure kaudi is better than a doubtful gold coin.  So says the Lokayata.

These six seem to be genuine aphorisms from the Lokayata Sutras.

In the eighth century, Haribhadra Suri, a voluminous writer of the Jainas, writes six verses in his Saddarasanasamuccaya noting the facat that the Lokayatas regard earthly enjoyment as the highest airm of human life. But his commentator Gunaratna gives us a quotation from Vacaspati, which may be synonymous with Brahaspati: Prthivyapetejovayuriti tattvani tatsamudaye sariravisayendriyasamjnas tebhyas caitanyam.

The ordinary derivation of the word Carvaka is caru and vak: charming, alluring, entertaining speech.  But the commentator gives another and more attractive derivation.  He says that the word is derived from carva: chewing, grinding with the teeth, eating, swallowing virtue and vice. Those who take no notice of virtue and vice are Carvakas.  He also says the Brahaspati is the author of their doctrine and so they are called
Barhaspatyah.

From the statement of the commentator Gunaratna, it appears that there were Lokayatikas even in his time, the end of the fifteenth century AD; that they were given to eating and drinking; that they indulged in all sorts of sensual excesses; that they were Kapalikas besmeared with dust; and they were Yogins belong to all castes.

In a work entitled Sarvasiddhanta-samgraha attributed to Samkaracaryya in the early part of the ninth century, it is stated that Barhaspatya, Arhata and Bauddha are non-Vedic systems of philosophy. The well-known verse agnihotram trayo vedah etc Samkara attributes to Brhaspati, and he says that the Lokayatas do not believe in the blessings of the future existence, but only in such blessings as agriculture, commerce, dairy farming, and dandaniti, which produce tangible results in this world.  This is what Kautilya also says about the followers of Brhaspati, the author of an ancient Arthasastra before him, who, he says, believed only in varta (Economics) and dandaniti (Coercion)

There is another work on the History of Indian Philosophy entitled Sarvadarsanasamuccaya written under the patronage of a Rajput Prince at Delhi by Maladhari Rajsekhara Suri in 1340 AD.  He includes the slokas on the Lokayatikas as found in Haribhadra’s work and attempts to refute their contents.

This is all the information we can pick up from known literature in Sanskrit.  From this, it is possible to recount a history of the system from the seventh century BC to the present day.  The Lokayatas do not believe in Isvara or in a future existence. Virtue and vice they have none.  They are Positivists.  They have few doctrines to defend but many to assail, and in the matter of assailing they are bold, direct and exceedingly sarcastic. Some of their sarcastic arguments are very enjoyable.  I cannot resist the temptation of quoting one or two.

(1)   Those who take a dip under the water of the Ganges with a view to rise up to heaven seem to be no better than sheep who, in order to advance for a fight in front, always retrace their steps.

(2)   If the animal immolated in a sacrifice goes to heaven, why does the sacrificer not kill his father and send him to heaven – a consummation so devoutly to be wished?

(3)   A Lokayata had a very orthodox wife, who always dinned into his ears that what learned men say after long deliberation cannot but be true. He said, very good, come. They went at midnight to the city gate.  The broad road leading from the gate was full of dust.  They made marks with three fingers on both sides imitating the footprints of wolves, and returned home.  Next morning the footprints frightened even the best of citizens who were afraid that wolves were frequenting the city.  The man now succeeded in bringing his wife completely around to his own opinion.

The orthodox Brahmins hated them with a genuine hatred.  Himadri in the 13^th century says that they should be expelled from the Sraddhasabha like dogs.

Dr. FW Thomas has recently published a work entitled Brhaspati Sutra which has been eagerly studied by all scholars interested in Indian history, though and society. The school of Brhaspati is older than Kautilya who quotes their opinion. Brhaspati is said to have been propounder of the doctrine of the Lokayatikas. He is also the writer of a Smrti work.  Some people think that there were three Brhaspatis: the economist, the philosopher and the law-giver.  Of the law-giver we have a number of verses printed in the collection of Smrti works.  Of the philosopher, we have two quotations. The Sutras now published by Dr. Thomas, written in the form of aphoristic lectures by Brhaspati to his pupil Indra, the ruler of heaven – in which form the Smrti work is also written – related to Economics.  Dr. Thomas is, however, not disposed to consider these sutras as genuine.  He thinks there are sutras which relate to things very modern.  Rejecting those sutras, and their number is large, there are enough in the book which should be as ancient as Brhaspati the economist.  The ancient sutras speak of the Lokayatas with approval, extolling them to the skies.  After enumerating the branches of economics then known, namely agriculture, cattle-breeding and commerce, Brhaspati says that in the matter of acquisition of wealth, Lokayata is the Sastra. Again, Lokayatikas say that the fruit of Varta, if not for the support of an army, soon perishes.  Even in those Sutras which. Thomas considers spurious, we get more information about the Lokayatikas than anywhere else.

One sutra says, if one not believing in Orthodoxy attempts to attain a human object in the right direction, he is a Lokayata.  Another says that the Lokayatikas hld Dharma to be futile.  It conduces to wealth (for the priests).  It is like stealing iron from a lump. Agnihotra, morning and evening rites, reciting mantras – everything is done for wealth. One reads the Vedas, which are full of earthly desire, to hid one’s own transgressions. Similarly, Agnihotra is performed with the object of drinking wine and enjoying women.

But the most important piece of information the Brhaspati Sutra give us is the close connection of the Lokayatas with the Kapalikas.  It says, for the productin of wealth Lokayata is the Sastra; in the same breath it says, for Kama or earthly enjoyments, Kapalika is the Sastra.  If Brhaspati says so he is sure to be denounced by orthodox people as Nastika.  But that is not our present purpose – our present purpose is the Kapalika. These are always looked down upon by all classes of people.  They are fond of cruel rites.  None can forget the fierce Kapalika bent upon woman-sacrifice in Bankim Chandra’s most powerful novel, Kapalakundala.  The scenes in that work are set in the Bengal coast in the early seventeenth century.  In the year 1092 Krsna Mistra, in his wonderful allegorical drama the Prabhodhacandrodaya, introduces a Kapalika and a Kapaliki to test the character for continence of a Buddhist monk and of a Digambara Jaina priest. The pair is bent upon Kamasadhana.  Bhavabhuti speaks of a Kapalika Aghoraghanta and a Kapaliki Kapalakundala bent upon the seduction of Malti and upon her destruction.  But the Brhaspati Sutras tell us that the Kapalikas are an ancient sect, at least as ancient as the Lokayata; and that as the Lokayatas, with their Materialistic Philosophy, marked the beginning of the science of Economics, so the Kapalikas, with what system of philosophy we do not know, marked the beginning of the science of Erotics. Brhaspati considers them to be distinct sects, but Gunaratna identifies the Kapalikas with the Lokayatikas.

The influence the Lokayatikas and of the Kapalikas is still strong in India. There is a sect, and a large one too, the followers of which believe that deha or the material human body is all that should be care for; their religious practices are concerned with the union of men and women and their success (siddhi) varies according to the duration of the union.  These call themselves Vaisnavas, but they do not believe in Visnu or Krsna or his incarnations.  They believe in deha.  They have another name, Sahajia, which is the name of a sect of Buddhists which arose from Mahayana in the last four centuries of their existence in India.  But Brhaspati Sutra gives the idea that there are more Kaplikas bent on Kamasadhana than Buddhists.

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