Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Authors of Dharmaśāstra-s (religious law-books of India) like Manu and Yājñavalkya lose no opportunities of condemning freethinkers. They are called dambhin, nāstika, pāsandin, haituka, etc.1 The word, haituka, is of particular interest. Literally it means ‘a reasoner’ (from hetu, ‘reason’). But Medhātithi (ninth century CE), a commentator on the Manusamhitā (Manusmrti) glosses…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Ancient Indian physicians were as much interested in philosophical speculations as in the problem of diseases and their cure (Chattopadhyaya 1979: 110-13; Dasgupta 1975: VI and ch. 13). Two Sanskrit compendia of medicine and surgery, the Carakasamhitā (CS) and the Suśrutasamhitā (SS), often employ the Sāmkhya and Nyāya-Vaiśesika terminology (Dasgupta 1975: ibid.; Mrinal…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya 0. Many, if not most, people nowadays go straight to the internet rather than look up a book to know something about anything under the sun. There are hundreds, if not thousands of files on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata system of philosophy there. Regrettably, many of them, though well-intentioned, are ill-informed and highly misleading. I…