Post on 08-Nov-2014
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Charvaka Philosophy
The Charvaka Philosophy believes that only those
things that can be perceived is the ultimate reality.
Charvaka Philosophy is a fanatical effort made to rid the age
of the weight of the past that was oppressing it. It is a
system of Indian philosophy that adopted numerous forms of
philosophical agnosticism and religious impassivity. The
branch is also known as Lokayata philosophy, as is stated in
the Rig Veda. Named after its founder, Carvaka, (also known as
Charu or Brhaspati) author of the Barhaspatya-sutras, the
Charvaka Philosophy is an atheistic, acquisitive and wild
thought. It is also known as `Lokayata` because it admits the
existence of this world (loka) alone. Materialist philosophers
who are referred to as Charvakas are also known as Lokayatas
or Laukayatikas, because they act like ordinary people. The
name `Lokayata` can be found in Kautilya`s Arthasastra that
refers to the three `anviksikis` or logical philosophies -
Yoga, Samkhya, and Lokayata. This very term was restricted to
the school of the `Lokyatikas`. In 7th century, the
philosopher Purandara had used the term `Charvaka` for the
first time. The 8th century philosophers Kamalasila and
Haribhadra had also used the same term.
In the outlines of Indian philosophy, Charvaka is classified
as a "heterodox" (nastika) system, the same classification as
is given to Buddhism and Jainism. While this branch of Indian
philosophy is not considered to be part of the six orthodox
schools of Hinduism, it is a remarkable testimony of the
materialistic movement within Hinduism.
According to research by eminent scholars it has been found
that Charvaka philosophy is co-eval with Buddhism and in 500
B.C. it meant `scepticism`. Apart from the account of Charvaka
philosophy found in the Rig Veda, certain amount of material
is also contained in the Chhandogya Upanishad, the
Mahabharata, Vatsyayana`s Nyayabhasya (2.1.37; 3.2.35),
Sridhara`s Nyayakandali, Jayanta`s Nyayamanjari, Udayana`s
Nyayakusumanjali (1.15), Prabhachandra`s Nyayakumudachandra,
Shankara`s Sharirakabhasya (1.1.1; 2.2.2; 3.3. 53-54) and
Vachaspati`s Bhamati (3.3.53). Further research has proved
that during the Mauryan period the Charvaka philosophy had
grown out of generic skepticism but at the same time the exact
date of Charvaka philosophy cannot be ascertained before the
6th century. It has also been found that the Brhaspatya Sutras
were written during the reign of the Mauryas.
The Charvaka Philosophy is called the Lokayata because the
philosophy believes that only this world or the `lok` is the
truth. They believe that whatever is arrived by the means of
direct perception is the ultimate truth. Whatever is not
perceivable is non-existent because of the simple reason that
it cannot be perceived. The proponents of this school of
thought believed that since sense perception is the only form
of knowledge therefore in that case matter becomes the only
reality. It is only matter that is cognizable with the help of
senses. According to the philosophy the ultimate principles
are the four elements. The four elements are earth, water, air
and fire. These elements according to them are eternal and can
explain the development from a protozoan to a philosopher. In
fact they said that intelligence is also the modification of
the four elements and intelligence is perished when the
element from which it rises gets dissolved. Even consciousness
says the Charvaka philosophy is produced after combining the
four elements. Thought is also the function of matter. They
believe that there is no world other than this. There exists
neither hell nor heaven. For them religion is a foolish
aberration and God is not necessary to account for the world.
Thus with an audacious dogmatism the Charvaka philosophy has
swept the world clean of all its values and has put down
belief in the Almighty as a symbol of mendaciousness, weakness
and cowardice.
The Charvakas have emphasised that pleasure and pain are the
central themes of life and it is not possible to separate life
from all these. They have also claimed that virtue is nothing
more than a delusion and enjoyment is the only reality. The
Charvaka School of Thought believed that life is the end of
life. Unlike the Upanishads the Charvaka or the materialist
philosophy asserts the doctrines of uncontrolled-energy,
self-assertion and reckless disregard for authority.
Charvaka philosophy strictly believes in perception as the one
source of valid knowledge. Hence, everything is pivoted
according to this principle. Metaphysics or the knowledge of
being and knowing is also rigidly adhered with perception as
the source of knowledge. According to Charvakas, atman is not
a separate entity, as one can never `see` atman. It is
consciousness that makes one grasps the reality of everything
worldly. Hence, the mind, the physical body, or the world one
dwells in - everything depends on perception and the
realisation by the consciousness.
Charvakas believe not in the notion of stringent philosophy,
but in liberal beliefs. Hence, they refute most of the
already-established rules in the context of Indian philosophy.
The prime importance is laid on the likes and dislikes of
humans. As a result, Charvakas believe in the perceived
knowledge of the present life, and not in rebirth and past
life. According to them good deed is not much necessary to
perform in one`s lifetime, as is instructed by the crafty
priests. The basic thought of the Charvakas is to obtain
worldly pleasure by making merry, as there is no hell where
one can be hurled.
Hence, it can be concluded saying that the materialist
philosophy had a lot to do with regard to the repudiation of
old system of religion and custom of magic. The Charvaka
Philosophy is in fact a man`s return to his own spirit and
rejection of all those which are external and foreign. It also
says that nothing needs to be accepted by an individual which
do not find its place in the way of reason.
The Charvaka way of life
Charvakas lead a life on his/her own will, never
worrying about the past or fearing godly penalisation.
The Charvakas denied the validity of dhartna (self-dharma,
righteous duty) in any form. Action when completed, the
Charvakas would say, ends there. Apurva or the latent
potential form which action takes, or merit and demerit cannot
be perceived by anyone at all. They are therefore not real. It
is foolish to think that past actions become a kind of unseen
force (adrsta) and determines one`s future births. In fact,
according to the Charvaka way of life, there is no rebirth.
Humans have only one birth and that is the present one. If
there is rebirth, one ought to remember it; no one remembers
his/her previous births.
Accepting only perception as the valid source of knowledge,
the Charvakas disapproved the reality of God. No one has ever
seen God and no one can see him in future. In fact, in the
Charvaka way of life, even the minor gods also do not exist.
They and the Vedas belong to the imagination of guileful
priests, who invented them to make a living out of them by
refereeing at sacrifices, and to awe people into submission by
saying that God would punish them if they did not abide by the
Vedas. There is no heaven, no hell, no God, and there are no
objective ethical laws. The only laws binding men are the laws
of the state, obedience to which brings rewards and
disobedience of which fetches punishment. And the science
(shastra) of the laws of state is the only science worth
studying.
What is meant by heaven is the pleasure one has in eating,
drinking, making merry and singing. And hell is the pain one
experiences in this world itself. There is no point in trying
to obtain salvation and a life of eternal quietude; there is
an end to life at death and all will be quietened then. The
Charvaka way of life speaks that the differences between
castes and their distinctive duties are laid down misleadingly
by interested people. There are no objective ethical laws, so
one can do what one wishes to, provided he is careful that his
actions do not bring pain as an outcome.
Charvaka way of life are of the faith that the religion of
sacrifices is false and is circularised only by priests
concerned in sacrificial offerings. The life of the monk
belongs only to impotent persons. Charvakas go on to state
that, if the animal offered in sacrifice goes to heaven, why
should not man offer his parents in sacrifice instead and send
them to heaven? The priests, thus, do not believe in what they
preach. They instruct that the offerings made in this world on
death anniversaries of ancestors satisfy their hunger and
thirst in the other world. If so, an extinguished flame in one
lamp should burn, when oil is poured in another. It is useless
to make food offerings to people already beyond the realms of
this world. Charvaka way of life sates that there is no soul
that leaves the body after death and goes to the other world;
or else, because of its attachment to its family and friends,
it is bound to come back to this very body. Life belongs only
to this world and ends in this world. There is no other world.
Man should hence try to make the best of this life, without
believing in all that the Brahmanic religion preaches. The
teachings of the Vedas, viewed by Charvakas, are those
appropriate for fools, rogues, or demons. The priests should
thus never be trusted and man should do whatever possible to
enhance his pleasure and avoid pain. And any action done for
the sake of pleasure is justified.
The Charvakas do not seem to have advocated pleasures of the
moment, because pleasures of the moment and over-indulgence
may result in pain and pain has to be avoided. It is also said
that, because pleasure is associated with fine arts like
music, they encouraged them and contributed much for their
development. And because they were unwilling to kill animals,
some of the Charvakas are also believed to be vegetarians.
But the peculiar contribution, which this philosophy seems to
have made to the philosophy of life, was the philosophical
justification it tried to furnish to any kind of action for
the sake of pleasure. Of course, pleasure is not possible in
the absence of wealth (artha). By spending money one can
obtain pleasure (kama). The value of dhartna (duty) and the
value of salvation (moksha) were firmly rejected by the
Charvaka School.
Nothing is recognised by this school as a duty. A man can do
anything - beg, borrow, steal or murder - in order to
accumulate more wealth and more pleasure. But the state laws
prevent a man from doing whatever he desires and punishes him
when he disobeys them. If he is clever enough to outsmart
them, then his action is justified. Otherwise, he should
follow them to avert the pain of punishment. Kings, who have
the power over the state`s laws, themselves can do whatever
they like and do anything for increasing their wealth, power,
pleasure and dominion. Thus Charvaka philosophy was later made
to support what in Europe was called `Machiavellian policies
of princes`.
Metaphysics in Charvaka philosophy
Charvaka metaphysics states that nothing that is
not perceived with the senses or consciousness is
real and existing.
According to the Charvakas, there is no such thing as the
atman. One does not and cannot perceive the atman, and one
cannot establish its existence with the help of inference,
because inference is not a valid source of knowledge. The
Charvakas state that consciousness is not due to the atman.
When a man dies, his/her consciousness goes away and one
cannot prove that it vanishes and exists somewhere else. Being
conscious is a peculiar quality of the living human body. It
can keep back the consciousness so long as the physical parts
are healthy and stay together in a certain form. Consciousness
thus is an emergent quality of the physical parts coming
together in specific proportions. For example, when yeast is
blended with certain juices, they turn into wine. The property
of being wine is a new quality which yeast and juices obtain
when blended. Therefore, according to Charvaka metaphysics,
life also is only a new configuration of matter. Nothing but
matter is real.
Therefore the atman or self-awareness is only the physical
body with a new emerging quality. But one always says that, `I
have a handsome body, a tall body` and so on. If the `I` is
not different from the body, how can it say: `I have such and
such a body`? To this the Charvakas answer by saying that the
use of `have` in these expressions is only conventional,
created by the false impression that the `I` is different from
the body.
The Charvaka metaphysics speak of the mind (manas), which is
different from the atman. But the Charvakas appear to think of
mind as the consciousness in its knowing function, which of
course is not separate from the body. The body together with
its consciousness is the atman and consciousness in its
experiencing function is the mind. Mind knows the external
world through the senses.
The world is the material world only. According to the
Charvaka metaphysics, it does not consist of five elements.
Earth, water, fire, air, and ether are the usual five elements
corresponding to the qualities smell, taste, colour, touch,
and sound, and also corresponding to the five sense organs,
nose, tongue, eye, touch, and ear. Excepting ether, the first
four elements are perceivable. Hence the Charvakas deny the
reality of ether. It was believed that the cause of sound in
the ear was the all-pervading ether. But the Charvakas say
that sound is caused by air touching the ear. Sound occurs due
to the movement of air, not of ether. The other four elements
make up the world. They consist of tiny particles. The
particles accepted by the Charvakas are visible particles;
they could not accept the reality of anything that could not
be comprehended with the senses.
Charvaka metaphysics are of the faith that there is no
external cause for the four elements coming together and
obtaining the qualities of life and consciousness. It is their
inherent quality to come together and to have those qualities.
However one cannot generalise on this process and establish a
law that, whenever these four elements come together in
certain ratio, life and consciousness will emerge. The
elements may alter their nature any time. One cannot,
therefore say that Nature comprises some eternal laws. Every
event is a probability, and if it develops into something,
then it develops according to its own peculiar nature. One may
conclude that, according to the Charvaka metaphysics, the
existence of everything is a chance, and that there are no
laws of nature, but every object possesses its own nature.
Theory of Knowledge in Charvaka philosophy
Charvaka theory of knowledge states only the
validity of perception as a vaild source of
knowledge.
Of the three crucial sources of knowledge accepted in common
by all the orthodox schools (perception, inference, and verbal
testimony), the Charvakas accepted only perception as the
valid source of knowledge and disapproves both inference and
verbal testimony. They are of faith that, whatever one
experiences through perception is rightful and existent.
The Charvakas at first seem not to have been mindful of the
difficulties in accepting perception as a valid source of
knowledge, which were pointed out later by the Buddhist and
Vedanta logicians. The later Charvakas expressed that they
were aware of the difficulties, but they did not discuss the
significances of this question and maintained a realistic
position.
It is interesting to notice here that, in their examination of
inference, the Charvakas foresaw the European sceptics. They
said that inference was not a valid source of knowledge,
because the major premise of an inference cannot be proved.
For instance:
Wherever there is smoke, there is fire (Major premise);
This mountain has smoke (Minor premise);
There is fire in the mountain (Conclusion).
This is the classical example of inference in Indian
epistemology. The Charvakas ask - (i) `How can we formulate
the major premise unless we have seen all the instances of
smoke? If we have not seen all the instances, how can we
logically be justified in using the word `wherever`? If we
have seen all the instances, we must have seen the present
case, viz. the mountain also. (2) Then what is the use of
making an inference when we have already perceived that there
is fire in the mountains?` Hence the Charvakas say that
inference is either impossible or unnecessary. Inference
cannot generate truth.
However, causal statements like `Fire causes the bodies to
expand` are also regarded as truth. And they are universal
propositions like the major premise. The Charvakas state that
these causal laws also are bound to be false. If one is able
to apply causal laws and find them to be true, it is only just
a chance event. In fact, the Charvaka theory of knowledge
speak that there is no existence of causal laws. Every event
is a chance; everything comes into existence and passes out of
it according to its own nature. Even this nature is not a
universal law; it too is subject to change.
The Charvakas make a strong attack on verbal testimony. Verbal
knowledge is only knowledge of words and their meanings are
based upon inference. One can say that: `The orange is red`.
Now, through the established meanings of the four words, one
infers that the object before the mind of the observer is an
orange and that it is red. But it has already been pointed out
that inference is a dicey source of knowledge. One can never
be sure of the reliability of the observer of orange. For
either reason, verbal testimony is not a reliable source of
knowledge. The Charvakas perhaps make their strongest attack
on the authenticity of the Vedas. The Vedas are not reliable
at all, because they are self-contradictory. They propound
thus in their theory, `At one place they enjoin on us not to
commit any injury; but at another place they ask us to
sacrifice animals to gods. How can one believe that the
killing of animals in sacrifices brings one merit?`
Charvaka theory of knowledge also does not believe that the
word-sounds are eternal. There is no sound, when no one utters
it. And it stays only when produced by the vocal organs. If it
is said that its timelessness can be proved by inference, it
has already been established that inference is not reliable.
And perception does not show that the word-sound can be
eternal.
The Charvaka theory of knowledge is not exactly scepticism or
agnosticism, but a fairly thoroughgoing positivism. They
accept the reality of whatever one can perceive with one`s
senses and refute the reality of whatever one cannot perceive.
However, it should also be noted that they did not deny the
formal validity of inference, because they used the very laws
of inference to show that one cannot obtain material truths
about the world through inference. They questioned only on the
premises regarding how one can obtain the major premise. But
they never stated that, even if one had the major premise,
inference was wrong. They did not criticise the structure of
the syllogism, but only wanted to prove that it was absolutely
useless for obtaining any new truth about the world. In fact,
they used the law of contradiction in disproving the doctrines
of their rivals.