Part 8.9 - Carvaka Philosophy

[Full title: A Comparative Study of different Indian Philosophies (d) Darsanas system of Indian Philosophies (9): Carvaka Philosophy]

Carvaka was a philosophy of skepticism and materialism, founded in the Mauryan period. Carvaka or Lokayata, both mean popular or agreeable in Sanskrit. It was emerged as an alternative to Orthodox Hindu pro-vedic Astika schools. They were extremely critical of other schools of philosophy of the time. Carvaka deemed Vedas to be tainted by the three faults of untruth, self-contradiction, and tautology. And in contrast to Buddhists and Jains, they mocked the concept of liberation and believed that, the viewpoint of relinquishing pleasure to avoid pain was the "reasoning of fools". Carvaka thought consciousness was an emanation from the body and it ended with the destruction of the body. They used quotes from Brhadaranyaka Upanisad to support this claim. Carvaka denied theory of re-birth or reincarnation and also denied inference as a means of knowledge and held sensory indulgence as the final objective of life.

The name Carvaka first was used in 7^th century by philosopher Purandara, who referred to his fellow materialists as the “Carvakas”. During 8^th century, philosopher Kamalasila, Haribhadra, Adi Sankara used the term Lokayata.^[1]

Carvaka held the view that Invariable Concomitance (vyapti), a theory of Indian logic which refers to the relation between middle term and major term freed from all conditions, could not be ascertained. However, Buddhists refuted this view by proposing that Invariable Concomitance was easily cognizable from the relation between cause and effect or from the establishment of identity.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carvaka (Retrieved on 30.04.2013)