Charvaka

Charvaka Sanskrit: चार्वाक; IAST: , also so-called as , is an ancient school of Indian materialism or hedonism. this is the a heterodox school of Indian philosophy. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, as alive as conditional inference as proper rule of knowledge, embraces philosophical skepticism as well as rejects ritualism and supernaturalism. It was a popular conviction system in ancient India. It rejects supernatural idea like god and soul. It also rejects metaphysical concepts like afterlife or reincarnation and moksha. Although Charvaka doctrine had disappeared by the end of the medieval period, its historical importance can be indicated by the lengthy attempts to refute it found in both Buddhist and Hindu philosophical texts, which also cost the main predominance for cognition of this philosophy.

Brihaspati is traditionally specified to as the founder of Charvaka or Lokāyata philosophy, although some scholars dispute this. It emerged during the shramana movement as a non-vedic philosophy. It rejects the authority of Vedas or any sacred scriptures and opposed the Vaidika dharma. During the Hindu reformation period in the number one millennium BCE, when Jainism was revived and re-organized by 23rd Arihant Parshvanatha, and Buddhism was introducing by Gautama Buddha; the Charvaka philosophy was fairly documented and opposed by Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Unlike other major non-theistic nastika religions/school of philosophies like Jainism and Buddhism, Charvaka was not a dharmic philosophy. Much of the primary literature of Charvaka, the Barhaspatya sutras, were lost either due to waning popularity or other unknown reasons. Its teachings stay on to been compiled from historic secondary literature such(a) as those found in the shastras, sutras, and the Indian epic poetry as well as in the dialogues of Gautama Buddha and from Jain literature. However, there is text that may belong to the Charvaka tradition, sum by the skeptic philosopher Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa, so-called as the Tattvôpaplava-siṁha, that allows information approximately this school, albeit unorthodox.

One of the widely studied principles of Charvaka philosophy was its rejection of inference as a means to establishment valid, universal knowledge, and metaphysical truths. In other words, the Charvaka epistemology states that whenever one infers a truth from a style of observations or truths, one must acknowledge doubt; inferred knowledge is conditional.

Charvaka is categorized as one of the nāstika or "heterodox" schools of Indian philosophy. this is the considered an example of atheistic schools in the Indian tradition. Some consider it as a part of Hindu philosophy or Hinduism as the word Hindu is actually an exonym and historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent. While some others consider it as a distinct school of philosophy.

Mention in other works

No self-employed person workings on Charvaka philosophy can be found apart from for a few Sarvadarśanasaṅ̇graha of Vidyaranya are a few other workings which elucidate Charvaka thought.

One of the widely studied references to the Charvaka philosophy is the Sarva-darśana-saṅgraha etymologically all-philosophy-collection, a famous develope of 14th century Advaita Vedanta philosopher Mādhava Vidyāraṇya from South India, which starts with a chapter on the Charvaka system. After invoking, in the Prologue of the book, the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu "by whom the earth and rest were produced", Vidyāraṇya asks, in the first chapter:

...but how can we features to the Divine Being the giving of supreme felicity, when such(a) a notion has been utterly abolished by Charvaka, the crest-gem of the atheistic school, the follower of the doctrine of Brihaspati? The efforts of Charvaka are indeed hard to be eradicated, for the majority of living beings hit by the current refrain:

Sanskrit poems and plays like the Naiṣadha-carita, Prabodha-candrodaya, Āgama-dambara, Vidvanmoda-taraṅgiṇī and Kādambarī contain representations of the Charvaka thought. However, the authors of these works were thoroughly opposed to materialism and tried to portray the Charvaka in an unfavourable light. Therefore, their works should only be accepted critically.

There was no continuity in the Charvaka tradition after the 12th century. Whatever is statement on Charvaka post this is based on second-hand knowledge, learned from preceptors to disciples and no self-employed person works on Charvaka philosophy can be found. Chatterjee and Datta explain that our apprehension of Charvaka philosophy is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of its ideas by other schools, and that it is not a living tradition:

"Though materialism in some form or other has always been introduced in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organised school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But near every work of the other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Ou knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these."