Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The Jayarāśi Question The Lion Assailing the Verities (Tattvopaplavasiṃha), written by Jayarāśi probably in the ninth century, has been claimed by some scholars to be the only surviving Cārvāka work. Others have challenged this view[i]. Since there is no external evidence to settle the question, the debate continues solely on the basis of…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Cārvāka: The Base Text and Its Commentators from the Eighth Century We now come to the formation of the philosophical systems, each having a set of aphorisms or sūtras with commentaries and sub-commentaries. Broadly speaking, the brahmanical position was unsparing in denouncing all the three of its non-Vedic adversaries, while the materialists…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Besides the Upaniṣads, the origins of materialism in India can be traced to tales found in both Buddhist and Jaina works. One such tale, the conversation between King Pāyāsi (Paesi) and a Buddhist or a Jaina monk, has been cited as an instance of materialism[i]. The story, found both in Buddhist and Jain…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The word “materialism,” as the name of a distinct approach to nature, including human nature, in the context of philosophy is found only relatively recently. The first recorded occurrence of the term in English, presumably borrowed from French, dates from the mid-eighteenth century. “Idealism,” the contrary of “materialism,” is not found in English…