G. Ramakrishna A prolific author and a versatile researcher, Professor Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya is among those who gave a qualitative turn to the methods and content of research in more disciplines than one. Essentially a student of Philosophy – Indian and Western – he has authored quite a few authentic works in the area of…
G Ramakrishna The murky record of idealism as a vicious weapon on the one hand and philosophical obscurantism on the other has a shining contrast in materialism. Once again the historical limitations of the ancient Indian materialist philosophers cannot be overlooked. The rudiments of materialism are quite clear in many anti-idealist schools of though and…
G Ramakrishna A total rejection of idealism means the acceptance of a secular, rational and scientific approach, while idealism has religion-orientation, faith in the scriptures, and superstitions in most of its major forms, for its accessories (p 234). The other major contribution of the anti-idealist schools of thought consists of the defence of practice as…
G Ramakrishna Indian Philosophy, especially the school of Vedanta with its source in the Upanishads, has been the subject of endless panegyric on the part of writers on the subject. Here are a few choice examples of their exuberance: “The Upanishads contain a scientific search for the substratum underlying the phenomenal forces of nature”. “In…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya’s Lokāyata (1959) is a much misunderstood work, although the subtitle of the book makes it clear that it is not meant to be a study in the Cārvāka/Lokāyata alone but ancient Indian materialism as a whole. Hence the book covers a wide range of issues involving archaeology, anthropology, Tantrism, Buddhism, Sāṃkhya,…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya’s Science and Society in Ancient India (1977) impressed Joseph Needham very much as had his Lokayata (1959). But there was one point on which Needham had some reservations. A series of letters relating to the doctrine of svabhava (lit. own being) and further discussions in person (when Chattoapdhyaya visited Needham in Cambridge)…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The publication of Lokayata: A study in Ancient Indian Materialism (People’s Publishing House, New Delhi, 1959) by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (1918-1993) ushered in a new era in the cultivation of Indian philosophy. Although some academics in India were taken aback by the range of topics covered in this 678-page work (excluding bibliography and index),…
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya [This essay was first published as part of a collection of essays, Indian Thought – An Introduction, edited by Donald H Bishop, and published in 1975. Background Lokayata Epistemology Social Ethics Consciousness Lokayata and Indian Materialism] I. Background It is generally assumed that Indian materialism can be discussed today only on the basis of…