Charvaka

Also called: Lokayata · Topic: Buddhism, Jainism and Heterodox Traditions · NCERT: Class 6, Ch 7 "India's Cultural Roots"; Class 12, Ch 4 "Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings"

Meaning

Chārvāka, also called Lokāyata, was an ancient Indian school of materialism: the belief that only matter is real. It taught that this material world is all that exists, so nothing survives death. It also rejected karma, moksha, the soul and the authority of the Vedas [2].

It matters because it shows how many different beliefs existed in early India. People could even choose a school that denied god, soul and the afterlife. It is also a classic exam example of a school we know only through its rivals' writings.

Explanation

Background: a crowded field of teachers

• In the sixth century BCE, many teachers travelled through the Ganga valley. The Buddha and Mahāvīra were only two of them.
• They argued over the same big questions:
• Is there a soul?
• Does karma work?

• What happens after death?

• The Lokāyata teacher Ajita Kesakambalin gave the most extreme answer of all: nothing at all happens after death, because nothing remains.

What Ajita Kesakambalin taught

• No reward for giving. He is reported to have said: "There is no such thing… as alms or sacrifice, or offerings… no such thing as this world or the next."
• Alms are gifts to monks. Sacrifice and offerings are rituals for the gods.

• He meant that these bring no reward, because there is no next world in which to collect it.

• The body is made of four elements. At death these separate and go back to where they came from:

• earth goes back to earth
• fluid goes back to water
• heat goes back to fire
• wind goes back to air

• the senses pass into space

• No soul is left behind. Once the elements separate, nothing remains to be reborn.

• Gifts to priests are useless. So, he said, "the talk of gifts is a doctrine of fools." Priests who promised a reward for donations were offering nothing real.

The wider Chārvāka position

• Only the material world exists, so there is no life after death.
• Later summaries say it rejected [2]:
• an afterworld
• karma (the idea that your actions decide your future births)
• moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death)
• the authority of the Vedas

• any soul or self that lives on after death

• How we know things: Chārvākas held that direct perception is the only valid source of knowledge [2]. Direct perception means what you can see, hear or touch for yourself.

• Inference (working something out by reasoning) was not accepted.
• Scripture (holy texts) was not accepted either.

What happened to it

• Chārvāka never became popular, and in the end it disappeared.
• Its own books have not survived.
• Even so, the fact that it existed at all shows a wide variety of belief systems. People had the freedom to choose between them.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: from c. sixth century BCE onward.
• Region: the Ganga valley, in the time of king Ajātasattu of Magadha.
• Key person: Ajita Kesakambalin, named as the teacher of the Lokāyatas.
• Main evidence: the Sutta Pitaka, one of the three "baskets" (collections) of Buddhist texts.
• It records a talk in which Ajātasattu tells the Buddha what other teachers had said to him.

• Ajita's teaching survives only through this report.

• Evidence problem: no Lokāyata text survives in which the school describes itself.

• We know it only from hostile sources, that is, rival Buddhist and Jaina texts.
• NCERT (Class 12, Ch 4 "Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings") asks whether the label "materialist" is fair, since only its opponents used it.
• Modern scholars show the same caution about how opponents described these sects [2].

Don't confuse with

• Ājīvikas (Makkhali Gosāla): fatalists, not materialists. They believed everything was fixed in advance by niyati (destiny) [2]. The "ball of string" simile belongs to Gosāla. The four elements teaching belongs to Ajita. The two sects were separate [2].
• Ājīvika royal support: Asoka had the Barābar caves in Bihar cut for the Ājīvikas, not for the Lokāyatas. Chārvāka has no such monument linked to it.
• Buddhism and Jainism: these also rejected the authority of the Vedas. But both still accepted karma, rebirth and liberation. Chārvāka rejected all three [2].
• Ājīvika survival vs Chārvāka decline: the Ājīvika sect lasted until about the 14th century CE [2]. Chārvāka never became popular and slowly disappeared.

Prelims Hooks

• Ajita Kesakambalin → teacher of the Lokāyatas / Chārvāka → labelled materialist.
• The four elements teaching (earth, water, fire, air, with the senses passing into space) is Ajita's, not Gosāla's.
• Source: the Sutta Pitaka, where king Ajātasattu of Magadha reports the rival teachers' views to the Buddha.
• Chārvāka accepted direct perception as the only valid source of knowledge [2].
• Chārvāka rejected the Vedas, karma, moksha and soul [2].
• Trap: "fatalist / niyati / ball of string" = Ājīvika. "Materialist / no next world / gifts are a doctrine of fools" = Lokāyata.

Mains Points

• Freedom of belief in early India. In the sixth century BCE, Chārvāka materialism existed alongside Buddhism, Jainism, Ājīvika fatalism and Vedic ritual. A school that denied soul, karma and the afterlife could exist openly. This shows real variety of belief and freedom to choose.
• History written by rivals. All that we know of Chārvāka comes from Buddhist and Jaina texts that were arguing against it.
• A rival will usually report your view in the form that is easiest to attack.
• So "materialist" may be a label invented by opponents rather than how the school saw itself [2].

• This is a strong example of source criticism: always ask who wrote the record, and why.

• A challenge to priestly authority. Chārvāka rejected the Vedas and called the "talk of gifts" foolish. This attacked the reward system behind sacrifice and donations to priests. It was the most radical form of the wider sixth-century questioning of Vedic ritual.

Related concepts

• Ajivika
• Makkhali Gosala
• Samsara
• Ajita Kesakambalin

Read more

• Ājīvikas, Lokāyata and the wider spectrum