Part 4c - Nāstika Darśana (3): Concept of Moksa according to Cārvāka Darśana

Cārvāka darśana is one of the heterodox (nāstika) and materialistic school of thought. It has different views about mokṣa than others. Every school of philosophy states relation of soul with mokṣa.

In Cārvāka darśana, the soul (ātmā) is nothing but the physical body, so the death of body is itself mokṣa and no mokṣa is resulted from the right knowledge—

dehasya nāśo muktistu najñānānmuktiricyate  |^[1]

When Cārvākas are queried how can they say that the soul is not different from body, they answer-It is in practice as we all say, ‘I am fat, I am thin’ etc. Always we refer ‘I’ with our body. So the soul is nothing but only physical body^[2].

ahaṃ sthūlo kṛśo'smīti sāmānādhikaraṇyataḥ |
dehaḥ sthaulyādiyogācca sa evātmā nāparaḥ ||

The question then arises, that we sometimes use the term ‘my body’ here we differentiate ‘I’ from ‘body’ But according to Cārvākas, such phrases are significant only metaphorically^[3] .

mama deho'yamityuktiḥ sambhavedaupacārikī |

If Cārvākas are asked, the physical body is sensation less, when the spirit enters into it, it becomes live, so we have to accept the soul different from body, they say that the spirit is not any other thing than the body. To prove that they give the example of beetle leaf. The beetle leaf, lime, catechu etc. don’t have red colour in themselves, but when you mix and eat them, the red color is automatically created. Similar to that, the spirit is created in the body itself which is the mixture of four elements, viz, earth, water, fire and air.

The typical materialistic view of Cārvākas is summed up in the following verse:—

yāvajjīvetsukhaṃ jīvedṛṇaṃ kṛtvā ghṛtaṃ pibet |
bhasmībhūtasya dehasya punarāgamanaṃ kutaḥ ? || ^[4]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

E.B. Cowell & A. E. Gough (Tr.), Madhavacharya, Sarva-Darsana-Sanghraha, Parimal Publications, Delhi,1986 p.6,7

[2]:

Ibid.

[3]:

Ibid.

[4]:

Ibid, p.11,12