The Canon · No. 023
Charvaka
Lokayata; Indian materialism
c.6th c. BCE – c.12th c. CE · Non-Theistic / Philosophical · Extinct · India
III. THE AXIAL AGE — c.900 – 200 BCE
How many
None as an organised school.
Who began it
Attributed to Brihaspati, and to a figure named Charvaka. Neither is securely historical.
What it is for
To clear away what the school regarded as priestly fraud and let people live without fear of invented consequences.
What it worships
Nothing. Charvaka is outright atheist and materialist, and it existed inside a religious civilisation for well over a millennium.
What it holds
Only perception is a valid means of knowledge; inference is unreliable and testimony worthless. There are four elements, and consciousness is a property that emerges from their combination, as intoxicating power emerges from fermenting ingredients that are individually not intoxicating. No soul, no karma, no rebirth, no liberation, no gods, no afterlife. The Vedas are the work of buffoons, knaves and demons — a line quoted by opponents and probably a fair summary of the school's tone. The one good is pleasure, moderately pursued.
What it does
No ritual, no priesthood, no ascetic discipline. That was the point.
After death
None. The famous formulation: while you live, live joyfully; no one escapes death; once the body is burnt to ashes, how shall it return?
Its texts
All primary texts are lost. The Brihaspati Sutra survives only in fragments quoted by enemies. Reconstructed from Madhava's Sarvadarshanasangraha (14th c.), Jain and Buddhist doxographies, and the play Prabodhachandrodaya. The Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarashi Bhatta (c.8th c. CE) is the one substantial surviving sceptical text.
Its branches
None.
Of note
Its survival for 1,800 years as a named, refuted, tolerated position is evidence that classical India argued about the existence of God far more openly than medieval Europe did.
Its timeline
- c.6th c. BCE Materialist positions circulating; Ajita Kesakambali in the Buddhist canon holds a comparable view.
- c.600 BCE–1200 CE Charvaka is listed as one of the standard schools every Indian philosopher was expected to refute, which is how we know it mattered.
- c.8th c. CE Jayarashi Bhatta's radical scepticism.
- c.12th–14th c. CE The school disappears; its texts are not copied.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.