Possession and Trance

William Sargant

States of Trance and so-called possession form the core of many experiences which seem spiritual, mysterious and Supernatural. All through history men have thought that in trance contact could be made with an order of reality lying behind the everyday world, an order of reality with which we are not in touch in our everyday condition of mind and body.'

A dictionary definition of the word trance is “a morbid sleep, differing from natural repose in duration, in profound sensibility, etc., - the concomitant or symp­tom of diseases of the nervous system, particularly hysteria: catalepsy”. This defini­tion points us straight to the connection between the 'morbid sleep' of trance in which contact with supernatural truth is thought to be made, and disorders of the human mental and physical system.

William Sargant

In many trance states the subject is mentally absorbed apparently unaware of the external world around him, perhaps in a condition of exultation or ecstasy; but he may continue to talk and behave in ways which make sense, though after wards he cannot remember what he said and did. It is this combination of a frightening and abnormal state of mind with comprehensible speech and behaviour that has impressed men with the notion that someone in trance is the mouthpiece of the Gods.

The same thing can happen to someone who is kicked on the head while playing football or who suffers from loss of memory after a violent shock. Some drugs, hash­ish, L.S.D., mescaline and the like, induce a trance state, or ecstatic state not neces­sarily involving loss of memory. Trance states can also occur as a result of tumours of the brain or other brain injuries.

But there are also trances which are not induced by a sudden blow or shock, and although it is perfectly possible to fake a trance and people have done so, there is no doubt that genuine trance states of this sort do occur. They occur III the ecstasies of mystics or magicians, when the mind is concentrated on a powerful idea or image, of a god perhaps, and the link between the mind and the normal world seems to snap. They occur in clairvoyants and fortune tellers. And quite frequently in mediums.

Speaking In Tongues

There is also the phenomenon called possession, in which a god or spirit, which may be good or evil, is thought to have taken control of the person in trance, to speak through his mouth and act through his limbs; the person afterwards remembering nothing of what happened during the trance. The words and actions of someone possessed by a god or a spirit naturally carry considerable weight with an audience which believes them to be the words and actions of the god or spirit itself.

All over the world and at all times, including the present day, trances have served to inculcate or fortify a variety of beliefs. In Tibet, before the coming of the Communists, important decisions of policy were generally taken by the Dalai Lama and his advisers only after they had consulted the state oracle. The oracle was a young man who went into a trance and spoke strange words, which the priests interpreted. Hundreds of years before, the oracle of the temple of Apollo at Delphi was a woman who went into trance. Through her mouth, it was believed, the god himself answered the questions put to him. Although the answers were famous for being riddling, obscure and frequently misleading, many important decisions were made by Greek politicians only after consulting the oracle and in an attempt to follow its advice.

Some of the early Christians, including St. Paul, experienced ecstatic trance states and the Church festival of Pentecost (Whitsun) still commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost to the apostles. There was the sound of great rushing wind, they saw what appeared to be cloven tongues of fire and they began to speak in foreign languages which they had never learned. This 'speaking in tongues' is a valued experience today among some groups of Christians who believe that it is a sign of contact with God.

Trance states are seen very commonly in Africa. During initiation ceremonies at puberty, states of trance are induced in boys and girls who experience a collapse or 'little death' after being exposed to rhythmic drumming, exhausting dancing, the pain of circumcision and the display to them of masks of the supposed tribal spirits. These spirits may talk to them through the mouths of witch-doctors who are themselves in states of trance and who wear the grotesque and frightening masks of the spirits they represent.

Real Healing Value

It is an old belief, still prevalent in some parts of the world that illness is caused by possession. Either the disease is itself an evil spirit which has seized the unfortunate patient in its grip, or it has been brought by an evil being which has taken hold of him. To cure him, the evil spirit must be cast out. The patient if often put into a trance, again through rhythmic dancing and singing, and the healer may also go into trance. Unknown to the patient, the evil spirit talks through his mouth telling the medicine-man why it has possessed the patient - perhaps because of some moral lapse on his part or as the result of a spell which an enemy has put on him. The medicine man then tries' to expel the spirit from the patient and, If he is successful, the patient emerges from his ~ mentally or physically healed.

Cures of this type do work in practice. From a psychiatrist's point of view, what happens is that in trance the patient is able to confess his sins and pour out his anxi­eties and problems in the same way as a patient on a Western psychotherapist's couch, though because he is in trance the African patient is not conscious of what he is saying and does not remember it afterwards. This process has real value for a variety of reasons, one of which is the patient's responding to suggestion and fully believing that the spirit which possessed him has been driven out.

Most of us in the West do not experience full-scale trance or possession at firsthand but we sometimes come close to it. Many people who went to hear Hitler speak - the effects of his hypnotic ranting reinforced by music, ceremonial, the response of a great crowd - were carried out of themselves into an uncritical state of mind in which they felt that he was almost a divine being. Enthusiastic listeners to the Beatles have been known to go into states akin to trance, with or without temporary loss of consciousness, when the music seems to take on a richness of significance of which the listener is powerfully aware though he cannot describe it in words. Lovers of classical music are not immune from the same effect. The state which we commonly call' being 'entranced', held in the grip of an experience of immeasurable beauty, immeasurable meaning, induced by works of art or by splendours of landscape, is the nearest approach to the true trance state which most of us ever make.

The Validity of Trance

There will always be arguments about trance. Some people believe that the medium in trance, the person possessed by a spirit, the speaker in tongues, the mystic in ecstasy, the art-lover entranced, may be truly in touch with a reality beyond the normal world, Others believe that trance is a splitting of the field of consciousness and . that the subject is not in touch with any mysterious or greater reality but is expressing beliefs, ideas, hopes or fears which he himself unconsciously holds or which are part of the general currency of his society.

The person in trance generally retains some vague awareness of his surroundings.  He rarely falls and hurts himself and he generally talks of things which he knows about. He may in fact exhibit a sharper perception and awareness of what is going on around him than in his normal conscious state, so that in trance he gives the impression of having an enhanced power to read other men's minds, to anaylse their present actions and prophesy their future ones. Strange tongues are spoken in trance but there is no completely proven instance of a language being spoken in trance by someone who was totally unacquainted with it before-hand. Subconscious forgotten memories can rise to the surface in trance: facts once known and languages once learned can be brought back by an individual who has little or no recollection of them in his normal state.

I do not myself believe that in states of trance gods ever speak to men. Trance is usually a state of self- hypnosis, through which all sorts of dubious beliefs can be implanted and maintained. Fortunes are not made because the subject of a trance is able to predict something readily checkable and profitable, the movements of prices on the Stock Exchange or the winners of horse-races. But trance states have been used through the ages, and will continue to be used, to prop up belief in a great variety of gods, spirits, ghosts and the rest. Those who have experienced trance themselves can rarely be convinced that something supernatural has not happened to them, because autosuggestibility tends to become so greatly enhanced in the Trance State.

We shall know much more about trance when we know better how the human brain really works. Readers of this encyclopedia will find states of trance mentioned in connection with gods' demons, ghosts, telepathy, witches, spirit possessions, and supernatural powers of all sorts. The reader is best left to his own final judgement as to whether man is deceived or elevated to high realms of the spirit by this fascinating but complicated mechanism of the human mind.

  

William Sargant was a controversial physician in Charge of the Department of Psychological Medi­cine at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, and a pioneer of physical methods of treatment in psychiatry. Author of Battle for the Mind, a work on brainwashing and conversion, and the Unquiet Mind, an autobiography, Dr. Sargant is a member of the Editorial Board of Man, Myth, and Magic, inwhich the above essay was published. 

Courtesy: Abraham Kovoor: Soul, Spirit, Rebirth and Possession; Published by B Premanand, Indian CSICOP, Podannur, Tamil Nadu; Date of Publication: 17-02-2000

Read More

Babri Demolition: Two Decades Later

Ram Puniyani

Twenty years ago (December 6, 1992) on this fateful day, Babri Mosque was demolished. This demolition remains a major blot in the history of India. It was the act of demolition by communal forces which reflected the changing polity of India and it in turn further changed the polity in a very adverse direction. Liberhan Commission showed that it was a pre-planned act orchestrated by Sangh Parivar, which gloated over it and celebrated it as Hindu Shaurya Diwas (Hindu Bravery Day). RSS combine and many an ideologues sympathizing with its ideology projected and are projecting this demolition as a major act of Nation building! While those committed to democracy and secularism see this day as a day which shamed Indian democracy; secularism and opened the floodgates of further communal polarization in a very intense way. What emerged from this tragic day was the strengthening of communal forces due to which BJP emerged as the major party at electoral level, which further communalized our culture into a narrow sectarian one. The values of divisiveness and intolerance towards weaker sections grew further.

 While the communal forces led the onslaught, the so called secular party, the Congress did everything to let the things go on, as a passive onlooker or an active colluder. Congress failed to protect the mosque and showed its week knees to the extent that many started equating Congress with BJP. It started being said that what BJP does openly during the day Congress does it covertly, by the night. These two major parties have ruled the Indian political space. In this BJP is programmatically communal and Congress is opportunistically communal. Not to be left behind during this demolition and in the aftermath of demolition, the violence which followed; the acts of violence which took place later and the role of police which was revealed during all these episodes has come as a shocker in a very blatant way. During demolition police failed to do its allotted duty and during violence it either looks the other way round or assists the rioters. In the aftermath of the violence, its role is again suspect. While the major victims of violence are the minorities, uniformly police arrests more from the minority community in large numbers. Despite some noble exceptions, many police personnel are most willing to violate the process of law to support the majoritarian communalism.

 The violence has a pattern. While the Muslims are 13.4% according to 2001 census, the number of victims from Muslim minorities is close to 90%. The strong persistence of biases against them acts as the fertile ground on which the violence takes place. Most sections of society, including political leadership of many parties, large sections of those in bureaucracy and police have strong biases against these hapless minorities, due to which the starting point of their action is in presuming that they are criminals. What follows next in the form of their action, quite conforms to this pattern.

  

The violence has been leading to polarization of communities along religious lines. This polarization is so strong by now that starting from schools, colleges and some work places, where per chance some Muslims find employment, the segregation along religious lines is becoming discernible. This polarization has led to the rise of communal forces to bigger electoral power is very visible. In Mumbai, as Shiv Sena took the lead in violence, it did come to grab electoral power in the aftermath of violence. Simultaneously the inquiry commission reports, which have come out so far, Srikrishna or Liberahan, get their place in the cold storage. While the communal parties in power treat these reports with disdain, the Congress shows no interest in getting them implemented, the calculations of vote bank comes to the fore and we painfully see the work of judiciary, the inquiry commission reports, adorning the library shelves, and that’s about all. Had there been the rule of law, the perpetrators of hate speech, those who lead the communal violence would have been behind the bars rather than roaring in the streets and being upgraded to be called as Hindu Hriday Samrats (Emperor of Hindu Hearts). It is no coincidence that after the 92-93 Mumbai carnage Bal Thackeray, who led the violence, and Narendra Modi who was at the centre of 2002 Gujarat pogrom, both came to be anointed with this pre fix of Hindu Hriday Samrat.

Babri Masjid - a Rear View
Courtesy: Wikipedia

 The impact of communalization process is also visible in section of judiciary. In states like Gujarat, the cases had to be shifted out of the state to see that the justice is done. In case of Ayodhya judgment of Allahabad High Court, we saw the situation where two of the three judges resorted to the ‘faith’ of the people to divide the ‘disputed’ land amongst three contending parties. This was something neither asked for by the litigants nor can stand on the legal grounds. The divisive violence has been leading to the formation of physical ghettoes where the sunlight of progress and liberal value can hardly reach despite the best efforts of the social workers committed to the cause of education and reform. In Mumbai in particular Mohalla Committees did play some positive role and do continue to play the same in some form, thanks to the affirmative action by some police officers of impeccable reputation and the social workers committed to the cause of peace in society.   

Unfortunately the response of state and the social groups to mitigate such a downward shift of the polity has not been adequate. While Government has set up National Foundation for Communal Harmony, its agenda and resources are too limited to address the mammoth task of spreading the awareness about the values of secular democratic values to most of the sections of society. The school text books, NCERT, have been improvised but these do not reach all the students, the state boards have yet to follow it. The sensitization efforts of the state, sensitization of bureaucracy and police are far from adequate. The need to look at their syllabi is most urgent. Surely they have a lot of time to spend for their basic job of policing or becoming the part of steel frame of the country but the aspects of education related to national integration have also to be taken more seriously and need to be integrated in to their curricula. The communal violence bill which can go a long way to prevent the occurrence of violence is again lying in the freezer of the government.

  

Social groups have their own limitations. While some social groups have focused on getting justice and have praiseworthy results, still the journey is too long due to the structural problems created due to spread of communal ideology and mindsets, which are dominating the social space. The emphasis on awareness program, though are there, these remains patchy, ad hoc and are not reaching the people where it should reach. The programs for secular values, in the arena of culture, street theatre, songs, films, though have taken off well, remain nascent. We have a long way to go for national unity, which is very much needed at the present time. The act of nation building is to follow the path of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. This whole exercise of Babri demolition has been the one of attempts to break the national unity, in a serious way. To put salt to the wound the communal forces are getting more legitimacy, one hopes that the lessons of Babri demolition are taken seriously by the society and state to reverse the trends initiated by this ghastly tragedy. 

Read More

Science versus Miracles: Burning a Ghost

B Premanand

Experiment: 83

Snapshots from the BBC Documentary Guru Busters

Effect: Burning a ghost

95% possession syndrome is found among girls, married women and old women, and only 5% among males.

This possession syndrome is the effect of problems at home where the do not get enough attention and love from the family. And unsatisfied sex life is the main problem with married women. Older women are jealous because of lack of attention from husbands and sons. Instead of looking into the cause of the problem, they go to tantriks for a cure. These tantriks know their problems, and to exploit the family they teach the affected person some poltergeist tricks. Or in the guise of exorcising a dead spirit or ghost, they conduct some rituals where fire is made and carry out animal and fowl sacrifices etc. The possessed one is beaten and forced to give some name of the dead person who has possessed her, or he himself may suggest the name of a dead person. If the case is a difficult one, some powder is thrown on her and with the sweat, her body burns. He frightens her that if she does not stop the spirit act, he will blow the powder into her eyes. It is chilly powder which he blows. Sometimes a red-hot iron is also pressed on her body and thighs. Out of pain and fear, she agrees to be well. To burn the ghost or dead spirit, he hands her a coconut in which the ghost which has possessed her has entered. She holds the coconut in her two hands and, he sprinkles holy water over the coconut until fire bursts from it. Then the coconut is hit on the ground and blood flows from the broken coconut. He explains that the ghost has been burnt and its blood has come out.

Snapshots from the BBC Documentary Guru Busters

Props: One coconut with fibre at the top, Sodium metal, big syringe, potassium permanganate.  

Method: There are three eyes on the top of the coconut one of which is soft. Make a thick solution of potassium permanganate in water and inject it into the coconut through the soft eye and seal the hole with wax.

Prior to the demonstration, keep a small piece of sodium metal in the coconut fibre which is injected with potassium permanganate solution. Call a volunteer, ask him to hold the coconut in his two hands straight away from the body. Chant incantations while sprinkling water on the coconut. Suddenly fire will burst out. Then break the coconut. Potassium permanganate solution with the coconut water flows out looking like blood.

Sodium reacts with water and bursts into flame.

Experiment: 84

Effect: Flowers come out of coconut when it is broken.

To prove that god is pleased, the tantrik breaks a coconut and bloomed jasmine flowers fall out from the coconut.

Props: One coconut, jasmine buds, a pointed thick needle and wax.

Method: Remove the soft eye of the coconut, suck out the coconut water and fill through the hole jasmine buds, one by one. Then close the hole with a bit of wax and cover it with the top fibre. Do this the previous night.

Ask the volunteer from the audience to come to the stage, give him the coconut and ask him to break it on the floor. He will be surprised to see jasmine flowers coming out of the coconut. 

Read More

Commentators on the Cārvākasūtra: A Critical Survey - Part I

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya

A recent essay by Karin Preisendanz (2008) set me thinking about the commentary tradition of the Cārvākasūtra. In spite of the fact that the mūla-text is lost, we have a number of fragments of the commentaries written by no fewer than four com­mentators, namely, Kambalāşvatara, Purandara, Aviddhakarņa, and Udbhata (Bhattacharya 2009, 65–68). The existence of other commentators too has been suggested (TS 22. 18568, II: 634), of whom only one name is mentioned elsewhere: Bhāvivikta (GrBh II: 257). Unfortunately no extract from his work is quoted any­where. It is interesting to note that there is a reference to Pauram: dariya vitti in addition to the Paurandaram sūtram (Pupphadanta, 20. 18. 9). We also read of Purandara as an author of a work on the Cārvāka doctrine (a marginal note in a ms qutd. in Gune 42).

From the thirty fragments so far collected we gather that Bhattodbhata or Udbhatabhatta was known as a commentator who differed from the traditional Cārvākas and broke new grounds in explaining some of the aphorisms (GrBh I: 100; SVR 764). Purandara too is claimed to have deviated from his predecessor/s, for he admitted a particular kind of inference, such as is well-known in the world (or better still, well-established in the world, lokaprasiddham anumānam) (TSP II: 528). Kamalaśila while quoting Purandara’s words (apparently verbatim) adds a tu, ‘‘but’’ (or ‘‘however’’) before the reporting verb, thereby giving birth to an opinion that the Cārvākas before Purandara accepted only one instrument of cognition, namely, perception, while Purandara includes such inference as depended on perception and well known in everyday practice (Franco and Preisendanz 180 col. 1).

This is open to question, as will be shown later. At present suffice it to say that while some critics call the Cārvākas pramānaikavādins, professing the validity of one and only one instrument of cognition (perception), they quote Bhartrthari’s Vākyapadīya,1.32–1.34 in support of their contention (Bhattacharya 2009, 117). This is downright absurd, for Bhartrhari considered scripture, āgama, to be the only valid instrument of cognition whereas the Cārvākas had nothing to do with it. In the long history of Indian philosophy Bhartrhari alone held a rigid one-pramāņa position. All others admitted two, three or four pramānas. The position of the Cārvākas was nearer the Buddhists (who admitted both perception and inference) than any other philosophical system. But in order to brand the Cārvākas as pramānaikavādins they were made to appear as one with Bhartrhari. Even though the commentators of the Cārvākasūtra had some differences among themselves concerning the interpretation of some aphorisms, they seem to have been unanimous in regard to the number of pramānas to be admitted. It was perception and inference based on perception. Only in this sense they were pramānaikavādins. Here we have to grasp the bhāva rather than the literal meaning of eka.

How do we know that? This is where the passages (fragments) from the com­mentaries of Aviddhakarna (PVSVT: 19) and Purandara (TSP II: 528) quoted by their opponents prove indispensable. Both of them interpret the aphorism, ‘‘Perception is the (only) instrument of cognition’’(III.1) in this sense (For details see Bhattacharya 2009, 88–90, Comms. 3, 4, 18). Udbhata too denied the status of inference as primary and defended the view of the sūtrakāra by adducing further reason (Comms. 11–13).

What is further to be noted is that, unlike other systems of philosophy, the Cārvāka/Lokāyata did not accord equal value to perception and inference. Inference, they said, must be grounded on perception first, so it was of secondary kind (gauna). The Nyāya school did not disagree with the view that inference is preceded by perception. However, they claimed that inference was nevertheless on a par with perception or word or comparison. The Cārvāka-s however claimed that perception was not only pramāņajyestha, the foremost of the pramāņa-s, but also the only primary means. Inference, etc. in order to be valid had to be based on perception first. Hence, they were secondary, or pramāņa in the secondary sense of the word. This is the proper understanding of the Cārvāka position and is supported by many Jain writers (for details, see Bhattacharya 2009, 57–63, 114–117). Vācaspatimisra disparages the Cārvākas by calling them worse than the beast, for they could not make inferential judgement on the basis of actual experience (Bhām on BS 3.3.53-4, 852). This is nothing but calumny, for the Cārvāka materialists accepted laukika anumāna as valid. This is found in the commentaries as well as admitted by some of their opponents (see Bhattacharya 2009, 57–58).

Let us turn to Udbhat:a again. He was well-versed in Nyāya terminology and employed them profusely (SVR 265, 270, 764). But what is remarkable is that he had a penchant for explaining aphorisms in a radically novel way. His interpretation was based on the inbuilt ambiguity of certain words in the sūtras, such as iti and tebhyah (GrBh I: 100, II: 257–258; SVR 1087). Consequently his glosses make the Cārvākasūtra appear as a kind of a parallel Nyāya text. Moreover some of his interpretations render the Cārvāka view as almost bordering on immaterialism, if not idealism proper (GrBh II: 257, 262). What has been said about S. H. Butcher’s Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art may very well apply to Udbhat:a’s commentary: ‘‘[Butcher] uses Aristotle as a peg on which to hang rather vague and un-Aristotelian speculations.’’ (Hardy 8)

The question is: once we know, as Jayantabhat::ta, Vādidevasūri and Cakradhara also knew (GrBh I: 100, II: 257–258; SVR 1087), that Udbhata was intent upon interpreting the Cārvāka in the light of his personal understanding, not following the original tradition, and even consciously going against it, how much credence is to be given to his work as a true exposition of the Cārvāka system? There is every reason to believe that he had hammered out a philosophical system of his own but instead of writing a new sūtra work, with or without an auto-commentary, as Purandara (see above) presumably did, he had manipulated the Cārvāka aphorisms to represent his singularly distinct point of view. Should we classify his commentary as ‘‘creative’’ (Preisendanz, 609–611)?

It should be borne in mind that Jayantabhatta and Vādidevasūri controvert the Cārvāka view accepting Udbhata’s commentary as the exposition of materialism in India. Jayanta refers to Udbhat:a sarcastically as ‘‘the well-learned Cārvākas’’ (honorific plural or meaning Udbhata and his followers) (NM I: 52, II: 257). More derisively he calls him ‘‘the cunning Cārvāka’’ (NM I: 100). Thanks to Cakradhara we now know that instead of two different persons (as some scholars used to believe) Jayanta was referring to one and the same person, namely, Udbhata, once calling him ‘‘the well-learned Cārvākas’’ and then ‘‘the cunning Cārvāka’’. It is to be noted that in spite of his occasional deviations from the ‘‘orthodox’’ Cārvāka position, Udbhata is still regarded by Jayanta and others as a Cārvāka.

However, there is an allusion to one unidentified ascetic (tapasvin) in NM I: 101, who may be Udbhata or some other person. Is it also an instance of sarcasm, so typical of Jayanta’s style? The suśiksitatarāh (NM I: 184), ‘‘the better-learned ones’’, however, probably refer to some other materialists. The change in the degree of comparison may not be without significance. They may allude to those who adhered to the Paurandarīya-vrtti rather than the Tattvatīkā, the commentary written by Udbhata.

Although Jayanta and Hemacandra, the Jain savant, do not hesitate to call the Cārvākas varāka ‘wretched’ (NM I: 9; YS 2.38), Vādidevasūri, another Jain scholar, mentions Udbhata as ‘‘the respectable veteran twice-born’’ (SVR 764). Vādidevasūri was aware of both the traditional view about the Cārvāka/Lokāyata (of Bhāvivikta and others) as well as the unconventional view of Udbhata (SVR 764). However, like Jayanta, Vādidevasūri quotes extensively from Udbhata’s commentary knowing full well that he was a maverick in the Cārvāka tradition.

Paucity of extracts from Udbhata’s commentary and lack of evidence regarding his identity, particularly the time he flourished, compel us to stop at this point without offering any conclusion. Chattopadhyaya and Gangopadhyaya, following Gaurinatha Shastri, identify Udbhata with the Sabhāpati of King Jayāpīda of Kashmir (regnal years 779–813 CE), as mentioned in the Rājatarangini (5.495). That would make Udbhata the philosopher identical with Udbhata the rhetorician. However, there is absolutely no evidence, internal or external, to justify such a conclusion. The names ending in -ta (Mammata, Rudrata, etc.) appear to suggest Kashmirian origin. But there is no harm in having three, or at least two Udbhatas instead of one. After all we hear of two more Udbhatas (NCC II: 341). In any case, one point is certain: Udbhata does not represent the mainstream Cārvāka tradition. By taking him as the true representative of the materialist doctrine Jayanta has successfully left the traditional Cārvākas out of consideration, excepting once when he writes that ‘‘the Cārvākas say that there is only one kind of pramāņa, which is perception’’ (NM I: 43). However, after a few pages he writes: ‘‘The well-learned Cārvākas say that it is really impossible to specifically state the number of pramāņa’’ (NM I: 52). This goes flatly against the words of the sūtra (III.1) which says: pratyaksam (ekam) eva pramāņam, ‘‘Perception indeed is the (only) means of right knowledge’’.

Jayanta was aware of the ancient Cārvākas like Bhāvivikta and others (as was Cakradhara, his faithful commentator (GrBh II: 257)). Jayanta’s refutation of the Cārvāka, however, is by and large beside the point. He was controverting Udbhata’s views, not the traditional views of the Cārvākas.

In this sense we may say that Udbhata’s commentary was creative in its own way but at the same time unreliable in reconstructing the original Cārvāka position. Udbhata is relevant only in relation to Jayanta and Vādidevasuūri but totally irrel­evant in connection with the Cārvāka philosophy as such. Udbhata is out and out a ‘‘revisionist’’ or more probably a Naiyāyika who wears a Cārvāka hat (as my friend, Prof. Prabal Kumar Sen suggests) and interprets the Cārvāka/Lokāyata in the most non-Cārvāka-like way conceivable (see GrBh II: 262). I would, however, avoid the expression, ‘‘progressive Cārvāka’’ used by Esther A. Solomon (1977–1978, 990), for Udbhata seems to have digressed from the original, monist materialist position, taking a dualist position concerning the body-consciousness relation. Moreover, he seems to verge on the idealist side in his explication of an aphorism (see Bhattacharya 2009, 68, 88–90). In this sense he was a reformist or revisionist.

Objections may be raised at this point: was not the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, like Nyāya and Sāmkhya, open to development, adopting itself to more advanced standards of philosophical reasoning and concepts? Why should it be considered absolutely monolithic over the centuries?

My answer is this: in case of Nyāya or Sāmkhya we do have evidence of development made by their adherents, or at least those who claimed to be their adherents for the time being. In case of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata the case is different. Aviddhakarna and Udbhata were basically Naiyāyikas. Even if they were converted to the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, they brought the whole baggage of Nyāya-Vaiśesika terminology when they composed their commentaries on the Cārvākasūtra. Such instances are not uncommon even in modern times. Without accepting the Cārvāka/Lokāyata views as whole, expositions, not altogether unsympathetic, have been written by traditional Sanskrit scholars. For instance, Pandit Ananta Kumar Bhattacharyya wrote such an exposition of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata in 1365 Bengali era (1958–1959 CE). An English translation of his essay has been provided by Chattopadhyaya and Gangopadhyaya (452–473). More recently, in 1984 Acarya Badarinatha Sukla, former Vice-Chancellor, Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, defended dehātmavāda, following the method of Nyāya (121–134). He even extolled dehātmavāda as an appropriate philosophy for contemporary life.

These developments are of course quite interesting but whether they mark any significant ‘‘growth’’ is, I am afraid, a matter of opinion. They do not help us reconstruct the original Cārvāka/Lokāyata or any other materialist doctrine that had flourished in India right from the Buddha’s time or even before. That is what we need first. We need more hard facts. Exploration of Tibetan sources is a desidera­tum. Such new material alone can throw more, if not new, light on materialism in India through the ages.

This essay was first published in the Journal of Indian Philosophy (Springer Netherlands) in 2010. Part II of the essay can be accessed here. Bibliography is available along with the second part.

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

Read More

Science versus Miracles: Joining Two Jute Threads without Leaving a Knot

B Premanand

Experiment: 81

Effect: Joining two jute threads without leaving a knot.

A tantrik promises to bring a squabbling husband and wife together when they are on the verge of divorce. Most Indian wives, being economically dependent on their husbands, rush to a tantrik or godman to save their marriage. To prove that he has the power to bring them together, he takes two pieces of jute thread and by incantations, the threads are joined together without any knots.

Props: A 12" piece of jute thread with 4 to 6 ply.

Method:  Separate the plies at the centre of the thread into two equal parts and twist them separately. The thread will look like two threads. Hiding the twisted part under your palm, ask two persons to pull the other two ends. It becomes one thread as if it was one thread without any joint.

Godmen cannot save a marriage. To save it, one has to keep a calm mind and think critically. Every small problem has to be critically examined to find out to what you would do if you were the other person. Only this will give you a clear solution which is the rational answer to solving a problem.

Experiment: 82

Effect: Making flowers bow down.

A godman from Kolhapur, Datta Bal, claimed that even plants and flowers bowed down to him in reverence because he was the avatar of Shiva. He also called himself the most scientific avatar being a science graduate. He died young a victim of hepatitis.

Props:  Ethyl Chloride spray, delicate plants with flowers

Method: Spray the Ethyl chloride on delicate plants and flowers. They begin to droop. 

Read More