6 The cārvāka philosophy

G. Vedaparayana

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1. Introduction

 

 Indian Culture Indian Religion and Philosophy  The cārvāka philosophy IC/IRP/06 Knowledge of Indian philosophy and heterodox systems in particular To study Epistemology – Metaphysics and the Ethics of the Cārvāka Materialism – Consciousness – Epiphenomena – Heterodox – Atheistic – Perception – Four elements  – Hedonism – Artha – and Kama .

 

The Cārvāka philosophy is called the materialism of the Indian thought. Materialism is a metaphysical theory which holds that matter is the only reality. It explains mind and consciousness as the epiphenomena or the products of matter. It seeks to reduce the higher phenomena to the lower ones. In this sense materialism is opposed to all kinds of spiritual interpretations of the universe. School of materialism is very old in India. We find some references to it in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature and Epics, but there is no systematic work or any organized school of followers of materialism. In Indian philosophy materialism must have arisen as a protest against the excessive monkdom of the Brahman۠◌a priests. It must have arisen also as a protest against the externals of ritualism, the idealism of the Upanishads, and exploitation of the masses by the petty rulers and monks and the political and social crises of the Upanishadic period. But materialisms soon died down when Jainism and Buddhism with their ethical and spiritual background came into the scene.

 

2. Origin and meaning

 

Bŗhaspati, a heretical teacher is regarded as the traditional founder of the Cārvāka school. Sometimes this Bŗhaspati is equated with the teacher of the Gods who taught materialism to the Asuras so that they might be ruined. There is another view that a thinker by name Cārvāka is the founder of this school and he was the chief disciple of Bŗhaspati. There is still another view that the term “Cārvāka is not a proper name but a common name given to the materialists. The term signifies a person who believes in “eat, drink and be merry”. The root “char” means to eat or to chew. So Cārvāka also means one whose words are sweet or one who is sweet-tongued and whose doctrine is superficially attractive. Cārvāka also means who eats up his own words, or who eats up all moral and ethical considerations There is another view that Charvaka is a synonym of Lokayata which means a commoner who is of low and unrefined taste. Arch-heretic (Nāstika–shiromaņi) is another name given to a materialist. Materialists are also called fools who think themselves to be wise and experts in leading people to ruin and doom. There are references to the materialists in Vedas, epics and Buddhistic literature. In Majjhina Nakaya we find a reference to a materialist called Ajitakesakambalin who believed only in perception and in four elements.

 

As the Sutra of Bŗhaspati perished, no original source of this school is extant. But there is one source of later origin namely, Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarāsi Bhatta, published by the Oriental Institute of Boroda in 1940. Other sources of this school are those that are given in the works of other schools, which have referred to materialism only to refute or to misinterpret it. Mostly the weak points of this school are highlighted and the strong ones are omitted. So we get only a faint picture or a with caricature of it. Although Cārvāka is an independent and unorthodox school of Indian philosophy we have to remain satisfied the meager and one-sided accounts of it. Depending upon the important Sutras of Bŗhaspati teachings of Cārvāka philosophy may be summed up as follows: Perception is the only authoritative means of true cognition. There are only four elements, namely, earth, water, fire and air. Bodies, senses and objects are the consequences of the different combination of the four elements. Consciousness arises from the matter like the intoxicating quality of the wine arising from fermented yeast. The soul is nothing but the conscious body. There is no other world. Death alone is liberation. Enjoyment is the only end of human life. There is neither heaven nor final liberation like mokşa. The rituals and ceremonies, yagnas and yagas are only a means of livelihood for Brahmanas the destitutes of knowledge and manliness. They do not produce any effect for the happiness of the soul in another world, for there is neither the soul that survives death nor is there any world other than this world. So let people live happily, by feeding on ghee here and now even by running in debts. The Vedas are nonsense and their authors are buffoons, knaves and demons.

 

3. Epistemology:

 

According to Cārvāka epistemology perception (pratyakşa) is the only valid means of knowledge. All other means including inference are not valid. To Cārvāka inference wherein we proceed from the known to the unknown is like mere leap in the dark. There is no certainty in inference although certain cases turn out to be true. A general proposition may be true in perceived cases, but there is no guarantee that it will hold true even in unperceived cases, Deductive inference suffers from the fallacy of petitio principi. That is, it is merely an argument in circle because its conclusion is already contained in the premises the validity of which is not proved. And inductive inference involves proof of the major premise of the deductive inference. But induction argument is also uncertain for it proceeds from the known to the unknown. Without a proper basis.. It jumps from the truth of a few instances to the truth of all instances. Simple enumeration is more certain than induction, for the latter is based on a casual relationship known as invariable association (Vyāpti) between the premises and conclusion. But Cārvāka regards the invariable universal relationship of concomitance as a mere guess work, for no pramana can prove it. Perception cannot prove Vyāpti. Causal relation between two instance cannot be proved by repeated perception of their occurrence together. Inference also cannot prove it, for inference itself presupposes its validity. Verbal testimony (śabda) too cannot prove it, for testimony is not a valid means of knowledge. Testimony involves giving knowledge of the unperceived objects also. In case, testimony or the authority of the words proves Vyāpti their inference would become dependent on testimony and none would be able to infer anything by oneself. The logicians find themselves stuck up in the mire of inference, for induction is uncertain and deduction is argument in a circle.

 

In rejecting inference as a valid source of knowledge the Cārvāka is in agreement with śunyavāda and Advaita Vedanta, who also reject the ultimate validity of inference. But the difference between them is that the Cārvāka rejects inference without making a distinction between empirical trans-empirical knowledge. But the Sunyavadin and the Advaitin reject the validity of all means of knowledge including perception in their ultimacy and they accept the empirical validity of all means of knowledge. Cārvāka’s position of accepting the validity of perception and at the same time rejecting inference has been criticized as being thoughtless and crude. To refuse the validity of inference from the standpoint is to refuse to think and discuss. It is through inference all thoughts, judgments, discussions and doctrines, proofs and disproofs are made possible. The world of thoughts and ideas can only be inferred and not perceivable .The Cārvāka’s rejection of inference involves self-contradiction, for it is based on inference that Cārvāka can argue that perception is valid and inference is invalid. It is only through the inference that Cārvāka can understand others and make others understand him. Even perception is liable to error. For instance we perceive the earth as being flat and static when it is actually elliptical and moving round the sun. We perceive the distant stars as being small in size when in reality they are far bigger than the planet, earth. Such perceptual knowledge is often contradicted by inference. Moreover, mere pure perception in the sense of mere sensations cannot be regarded as a means of knowledge. Mere sense-data cannot pass for knowledge. Knowledge valid or invalid is the result of conception and thinking which arrange the sense-data into order and meaning to it. And the Cārvāka’s own arguments and reasons for the rejection of inference itself presuppose the inference as the valid means of knowledge. The Cārvāka regards verbal testimony as an uncertain source of knowledge. It accepts testimony as valid in so far as words are heard through our own ears, since what is heard is equivalent to what is perceived. Knowledge of words is as good as knowledge through perception. But testimony becomes invalid in so far as the words suggest things that are not within our perception. Words suffer from error and doubt if they aim at giving us knowledge of the unperceived objects. So the Cārvākas reject the Vedas as the valid means of knowledge. The authority of Vedas should not be held in esteem, for they are the works of some cunning priests who earned their living by duping the ignorant and credulous with false hopes and promises and persuading them to perform Vedic rites.

 

4. Metaphysics:

 

The Cārvāka metaphysics follows from its epistemology. According to them what is perceived alone is real, for perception alone is the reliable source of knowledge. We can assert only the reliability of perceptible objects. Therefore God, soul, heaven, life before and after death are not real. The unperceived law (adrşţa) is also not true. Only the material objects whose existence alone can be perceived are real. And only four elements—water, earth, air and fire are eternal and there is nothing beyond them that is eternal. Production and dissolution is nothing but a particular combination and separation of these material elements. As already mentioned consciousness or mind is also a mere product of the same material elements. Consciousness is always found associated with the body and it disappears when the body disintegrates. Production of consciousness is similar to the production of red color by the combination of betel, areca nut and lime. Though no element contains consciousness within itself, their combination produces consciousness. Consciousness is the result of an emergent and dialectical evolution of matter only. It is the by-product of matter. Matter secrets mind as liver secrets bile. Nobody has seen consciousness without the body. Even the so called soul is only consciousness living in the body. God or a supernatural element is not necessary to account for the world. Identification of the so-called soul with the gross body, the senses, with breath or with mind implies that the soul is a product of matter. The Cārvāka holds that there are no such things as values and talk about them is a foolish aberration

 

The Cārvāka is atheistic in the sense that it rejects God as the creator, sustainer and destroyer of the world. There is no need for the God as the creator, for the material elements produce the world without any need for the so called efficient cause. The material elements have their own inherent and fixed nature (svabhava) and laws according to which they combine together to form the world. There is no proof that the objects of the world are the products of any design. They can be explained more reasonably as the fortuitous products of the four elements. The world has no conscious purpose. So, Cārvāka is called atheistic, materialistic, mechanistic and positivistic for it believes only in positive facts or observable phenomena.

 

But several other schools have criticized the Cārvāka materialistic conception of consciousness. It has been held that there are certain mental states like dreams where consciousness may be said to exist without the living body. When a dreamer awakes, he disowns the dream-body but owns the dream-consciousness. The dream-objects are sublated in the waking life but the dream-consciousness is not contradicted even in the waking life. When a person gets up after seeing a tiger in a dream, he realizes that the tiger is unreal but the fact that he saw a tiger in a dream remains a fact even in the waking life. This is the proof that consciousness persists through the three stages of waking, dream and deep sleep. So, consciousness is something superior to the body. Moreover, the knower, the subject cannot be totally reduced to the object, the known, since the known objects presuppose the existence of the subject who is consciousness. Cārvāka’s argument that consciousness is not experienced without the material body is not the proof that consciousness is the product of the matter. The eye for instance cannot see in darkness and sight is not possible without light, yet light cannot be regarded as the cause of sight. Mere co-existence of body and mind cannot make the body as the cause of the mind. The two horns of a bull which are always found together cannot be regarded as casually connected. It may be argued that the body is not the cause of consciousness but an instrument for the manifestation of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be said to be the property of the body, for, if it is so it should be known like a property of matter through smell, touch etc. and in the same manner by all. But consciousness is intimately private and the consciousness of the one cannot be shared by all. Against the Cārvāka’s argument that the existence of the soul surviving death cannot be demonstrated, it can be argued that its non-existence too cannot be demonstrated.

 

5. Ethics:

 

According to Cārvāka sensual pleasure is the supreme value of life. They advocate the principle of eat drink and be merry now, for tomorrow is not ours. Do not wait for future, for once the body is reduced to ashes there is no hope of coming back here again. There is no otherworld and the soul does not survive death. All the values are false and created by the mentally sick people. Religion is only a means of livelihood of the priests. The Cārvāka ethics is the individual hedonism which regards the sensual pleasure of the individual as the only end of life. Of the four values- Dharma, Artha, Kāma and Moksha, only kāma in the sense of sensual pleasure is valid. And Artha in the sense of wealth is also valid for it helps as a means of realizing the goal of Kama. The Cārvāka rejects Dharma and Moksha as being no value at all. Although pleasure is always associated with pain yet it is no reason to avoid pleasure. It is foolish not to cook food because of beggars and nobody avoids sowing seeds because of cattle grazing. There is no God as the efficient cause of producing the world out of the four elements. There is not God as the creator sustainer and the destroyer of the world and the controller of our life and destiny. Liberation in the sense of destruction of all suffering can be obtained only by death and no wise person would willingly work for that goal. Virtue and vice are distinctions made by the scriptures whose authority cannot be rationally accepted. Therefore neither liberation nor virtue should be our end. Wealth and enjoyment are the only rational ends that a wise person can toil to achieve.

 

6. Summary:

 

Cārvāka ethics of materialism led to its own downfall The rejection of the authority of the Vedas, denouncement of the Brahmana priests, and the Jaina and the Buddhist ethics have contributed to the demise of the Cārvāka system. Denial of the human values is the main cause of contempt for the Cārvāka. Life without the supreme values like Dharma and Moksha will be equivalent to animal life. Sensual pleasures are only a faint shadow of the supreme pleasure which is worthy to be sought by the philosopher. The gross sensual pleasures are meant for the pig only. The refined materialists accommodate the value of Dharma in their philosophy. They hold that the enjoyment of pleasures should be always in accordance with the Dharma. For instance Vatsayana recommends the desirability of sensual pleasure yet he regards Dharma as the value to be followed in acquiring pleasures. Human being is not a mere biological being but a psychological, rational and moral agent who is capable of transforming animal pleasures into human pleasures through education, self-control, culture and spiritual discipline.

 

It is held that the Cārvāka system is a specimen of the Indian skepticism of an extreme type. The skepticism that we find in Jayarāsi’s (18th C.AD) Tatvopaplavasimha) is absolute in the sense that it goes to logical conclusion of refusing the existence of even the physical elements and the validity of the perceptual knowledge. As an anti-intellectualist pragmatist with a relentless destructive dialectic he exposes the defects of all the accepted sources of knowledge and concludes that even on the denial of all theoretical principles and doctrines. Practical life will go on as ever with unreflective ease.

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Web links

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka
  • http://www.iep.utm.edu/indmat/
  • http://www.ancient.eu/Charvaka/
  • https://indiaphilosophy.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/origin-and-history-of-lokayata-charvaka-philosophy/
  • https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ibk1952/46/2/46_2_1048/_article

Bibliography

  • Satischandra Chatterjee & Dhirendramohan Dutta – An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, Rupa Publications, 2012.
  • Chandradhar Sarma – A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidass,1994.
  • Hiriyanna, M, – Essentials of Indian Philosophy, Mysore university, 1952.