It is advantageous to join the nature-philosophical schools with the description of Materialism, as the latter stands nearer to them than all other schools. By the way, the Indians themselves, as a rule, speak not of Materialism, but they characterise its adherents usually as deniers or negativists (nāstikāḥ). And it has its good ground. For Indian Materialism, the essential thing is not the denial of the soul and the exclusive restriction to matter as the cause for the explanation of the world. The decisive thing, on the contrary, is its purely negative interest. Its aim is to dispute and deny the continuance of life after death, the retribution of good and bad work, and the moral claims derived out of them. It is interested in philosophical questions only so far as they serve this aim. Concerning the rest, it is indifferent to them. That distinguishes it from all others and also from nature-philosophical schools. Naturally, Materialism could reach its aim most quickly if it denied the existence of the soul. But so far as the assumption of a soul served only the explanation of the phenomenal world, as was the case in the old nature-philosophy before it was connected up with belief in God and with the doctrine of Deliverance, it was also acceptable to Materialism. As a matter of fact, there are also found given materialistic directions which recognise a soul in this sense and which have established a connection, therethrough, with the nature-philosophical schools. But while these nature-philosophical schools were governed by the striving towards the understanding of the phenomenal world, and their attempts at explanation gradually formed into the full-fledged philosophical system, the materialists satisfied themselves all the while with their positing of a purely negative aim. Therefore, the Indian characterisation of them as ‘deniers or negativists’ is appropriate. But in my presentation, I will follow the usual practice for the sake of simplicity and speak of Materialism, by which a man should not lose sight of the right understanding of what has been said.

Materialistic directions of the above-mentioned kind are already found in India since early times. The old maxim, that materialism is as old as philosophy, holds good also here. And just as we hear, in the recorded oldest Vedic monuments, of believers in god, also of god-deniers, there is also information about materialistic directions standing side by side with the oldest recorded monuments of philosophical doctrine. In India, there early emerges a characteristic feature which also holds good for the later period – a close connection of materialism with political theory. The Indians had early developed a systematic doctrine of statecraft which made light of all moral scruples in the positing of its aim and of the choice of means, which, therefore, corresponds to what for us is associated with the name of Machiavelli. The embodiment of this statecraft is the legendary Minister of King Candragupta of the Maurya family, who founded for the first time an indigenous empire on Indian soil at the end of the fourth century B.C. Indian tradition ascribes the merit for the success of Candragupta to this Brāhmaṇa named Cāṇakya or Kauṭilya, and has always seen in him an unsurpassed master of the art of statecraft. The most famous Indian literary work about the science of statecraft is handed down under his name. This Cāṇakya, as is shown by tradition, is the prototype of the unscrupulous Realpolitiker who avoids no means if it only leads him to his goal. And his ideal as well as his theory has been much esteemed in the circles of practical Politikers or politicians.

It is now easy to understand that such a Politiker, from the point of worldview, supported himself on a doctrine which put out of the way or removed all moral scruples that were hindrances to his action. One such doctrine was Materialism. Its positing of the aim, as we have described above, corresponds entirely with its purpose. It was created for this circle, whether it may acknowledge it openly or secretly. It is, therefore, certainly no accident that the first materialist, whom tradition has handed down to us in living, vivid colours, is a King.

King Paesi

We find, in the canon of the Jaina, as also of the Buddhists, the account of a conversation which one of their teachers had with a King who adhered to a gross materialism. The conversation ends, as it is to be expected according to the origin of the report, with the conversion of the King. But the narration is carried out in such a lively way and gives such a graphic picture of the materialistic views in the period of the Jaina and the Buddha that I cite a few pieces out of them.¹

In the City of Seyaviyā, there rules a bad King Paesi (the Buddhists call him Pāyāsi) who believes in no God and no beyond. One day, the holy man Kesi arrives in this city. Now the King has a charioteer named Citta who was won over earlier by Kesi as an adherent, and who longingly wishes that the King also should be converted. He knows how to arrange it skilfully so that the King, during his morning drive, alights down in the park in which Kesi is staying, and it comes to a conversation between the King and the holy man. The King has heard that Kesi believes in a soul which is different from the body, and reproaches him as follows:

“If you have the conviction that the soul is different from the body and not the same, I have, on the other hand, to cite the following. I had a godless, wicked grandfather who did not administer his Kingdom well and who, after his death, must have reached hell on account of his bad actions. If now he would come to me, who am ever his beloved grandson – his joy and care – and warn me against living as godlessly as he did, in order that I should not go to hell, then I would believe that the soul is different from the body. But as he has not come to warn me, I am convinced that the soul and the body are the same.”

Thereupon Kesi replied: “If you notice, oh King, that your wife has given herself up to another man, what punishment would you inflict on this man?”

“I would get him executed in any way.”

“If the man were to request you that he should be given some time before his execution in order to warn his relatives and acquaintances against a similar offence, would you grant him also at least only one moment?”

“No, why should I?”

“Entirely in the same way, thy godless grandfather, who according to our doctrine is in hell, has not come; he has, no doubt, the wish to come to thee, his beloved grandson – his joy and care – in order to warn thee. But he cannot. Because there are the most diverse grounds that a being tarrying in hell, however much he would like to come to men, cannot come. Therefore, believe, Paesi, that the soul is different from the body.”

And again the King says: “What you say is merely a comparison and does not apply to the following. I had a very pious grandmother, who according to your doctrine must have got, after her death, into a world of the gods for her pious acts. If she would come to me, who was her most beloved grandson – her joy and care – and admonish me to live piously like her in order that I should attain the world of the gods, then I would believe that the soul is different from the body. But she has not come to admonish me, and I am convinced that the soul and the body are the same.”

Upon this, Kesi knew how to reply. But Paesi has also made an experiment. He reports, for example: “I was once in my reception-hall surrounded by the distinguished elite of my kingdom. There, the city watchmen brought a thief whom they had caught. I got him thrown alive into a brazen pot, with a brass lid strongly soldered laid over it, with the coppersmith watching over him. After some time, I got the lid opened and found the man dead, though there was no opening in the pot through which the soul could have escaped. Had there been an opening in the jar through which the soul could have escaped, I would believe that the soul is different from the body. But it was not the case. So I am convinced that the soul and the body are not the same.”

And another experiment: Paesi had first executed one offender and then got him locked up in a jar, and when it was opened after some time, the corpse was full of worms. The jar, however, had no opening through which the souls of these worms could have reached the inside. Another offender was got weighed by Paesi. Then he was killed, except that his skin only was injured, and he was again weighed. But the weight was the same. Therefore, no soul could have escaped. Another offender he got hacked to pieces in order to search for the soul, but it was not to be found. Such other like experiments were made by Paesi. Kesi knew appropriate answers to all these arguments, and finally Paesi gives himself over as beaten and converted.

This account gives a lively picture of an old Indian Materialist on the King’s throne. And Paesi was certainly not the only one of his kind. But however interesting and characteristic such accounts are, they can rarely claim a place of the same kind in a history of Indian philosophy. Materialism gains for itself an importance from the moment only when it emerged in the form of a regular doctrine and took up arms against the remaining philosophical schools. That occurred also very early. The old writings of the Buddhistic canons report that, in the time of the Buddha, a large number of teachers stalked the land and gathered students around themselves. Among them are found such as represent materialistic doctrines.²

The Oldest Materialistic Doctrines

We hear of a certain Pūraṇa Kassapa who taught the following: “Anybody may do or allow to do anything, mutilate or allow somebody to be mutilated, roast or allow somebody to be roasted, persecute, plague, harass or get somebody persecuted, plagued or harassed, may rob life, steal, break into a house, drag away the loot, plunder a sequestered house, carry on highwaymanship or brigandage, commit adultery or lie; but he, with all this, does nothing bad. If anyone, with a razor-sharp quoit, reduces a living creature on the earth to a heap of flesh, transforms him into a single lump of flesh, he would thereby prove himself as doing nothing bad; it would not appear as anything bad. If anybody would go to the southern bank of the Gaṅgā,³ murdering and allowing somebody to murder, mutilating and allowing somebody to mutilate, roasting and allowing somebody to roast, he would prove himself as doing nothing bad; it would not appear bad. And if he would go to the northern bank of the Gaṅgā,³ giving gifts and causing them to be given, sacrificing and causing sacrifices to be offered, it would thereupon prove in no way meritorious; it would not appear as merit. Through presents, self-discipline, self-mastery and veracity, there arises or appears no merit.”

A second teacher, Ajita Kesakambala, represented the following view: “There is no gift in charity, there is no sacrifice, there are no offerings. There is no fruit and ripening of good and bad actions. There is not this world or that. There is no mother nor father. There are no spontaneously born beings.⁴ In the world, there are no ascetics and Brāhmaṇas who have gone along the right path of conduct and follow the right conduct, who have seen this world and that world out of independent knowledge and proclaimed it. A man consists of four Elements. When he dies, earth goes into the mass of earth (pṛthivīkāyaḥ), water into the mass of water, fire into the mass of fire, breath into the mass of air, and the sense-organs enter into space (ākāśaḥ). Four men with the bier as the fifth carry forth the dead person, and they carry on their talk until they come into the place of cremation. Then there remain only white bones, and all the sacrifices end in ashes. The gift of charity is, therefore, the doctrine of a buffoon; it is an empty and false talk when anybody asserts that there is something. Fools and wise men are destroyed and disappear when the body falls to pieces. They are no more after death.”

A third teacher finally, Kakuda Kātyāyana, teaches the following:

“There are seven masses (kāyāḥ) which are neither created nor brought forth. They are unfruitful, unchangeable, and are firm like a pillar. They move not, nor do they change, they do not disturb each other, nor are they able to procure joy, grief, or joy and grief. Which are these seven masses? The earth-mass, the water-mass, the fire-mass, the air-mass, pleasure, pain, and the souls (jīvāḥ) as the seventh. These seven masses are neither created nor produced; they are unfruitful, unchangeable, and firm like a pillar. They do not move nor do they change, they do not disturb one another, and they are not able to procure pleasure, pain, or pleasure and pain. There is no murderer, nor one who allows to murder, nor anyone who hears or allows to hear, no knower or one who allows to know. When anybody with a sharp sword strikes off a head, nobody robs nobody of life. The sword passes, on the contrary, through empty space, between the seven masses.”

Of these three doctrines, the first exhausts itself in mere denial of all moral obligations. The second seeks to prove it with a gross materialism. The third finally represents an ancient nature-philosophy which explains all occurrences through the interplay of a number of permanent factors. The souls also occur among these factors. But this doctrine also denies everything transcendent. And all three are unanimous in the fact that they deny continuance after death and the moral consequences arising therefrom, and are, in this sense, genuine materialistic doctrines.

The old writings of the Jaina also describe similar materialistic doctrines. We, therefore, see that Materialism arose early in the form of a regular theory. But development, thereby, does not remain stationary. It led to the creation of a fully formed materialistic system which was handed down like all other systems, in the form of a School – that of the Lokāyata.

The Lokāyata System

The Lokāyata, i.e., the doctrine which concerns this world, arose in the pre-Christian period. As a founder is regarded one Cārvāka about whom nothing further is known.⁵ It is characteristic for this system that it is clothed in the same form as the remaining systems. Like these, its doctrines are written down in aphorisms which were orally handed down.⁶ Further, one took care to refer his doctrines to a holy seer of antiquity in Brahmanical circles. In a similar way, the Lokāyata derived its doctrine from a higher authority. As we have already heard, Materialism was connected most closely with circles which taught the art of statecraft. But as the highest teacher of the art of statecraft and as its legendary proclaimer was considered Bṛhaspati, the teacher of the gods, and besides him, there was Uśanas, the teacher of the Asuras, the demons. Accordingly, the Lokāyata traced back its aphorisms to Bṛhaspati. Besides, we also hear of a school which refers itself to Uśanas.

Like the aphorisms of the Vaiśeṣika and other systems,⁷ the aphorisms of the Lokāyata also begin with the words: “Now we shall explain the truth.” Now the chief maxims of the system follow sharply and trenchantly:⁸ “Earth, water, fire, air: these are the entities.” “One designates their connection or combination as body, sense-organs and objects.” “Out of them develops the mind or spirit itself.” “Knowledge arises like the force of a fermenting intoxicant out of yeast, etc.” “The expressions of life (jīvāḥ) resemble bubbles in water.” “And because there is nothing that continues in the world beyond, there is, therefore, no world beyond.”

With this has been said what is essential of the Lokāyata. Man consists only of four elements; there is no soul. Therefore, there is no beyond and no retribution of good and bad actions.

These short maxims or aphorisms were explained and further set forth, first in oral and, later on, in written elucidations. For example, the question was raised from the opponents’ side, why, when as a matter of fact everything consists of the elements, sentiency emerges only in the human body and not in inanimate things like a pot or a vessel. Thereupon, the reply was: “Sentiency does not emerge into appearance in vessels, etc., because the remaining causes are missing, just as in sand, the force of intoxication or intoxicant does not appear forth.”⁹ Again, the force of intoxication, when it is to appear forth, presupposes not only the presence of necessary things – flour, water and molasses and the remaining ingredients – but also the fact that these must be in a particular condition of mixture. So also the elements may produce sentiency only when they appear in a particular state, i.e., in the form of the body as skin, bones, flesh and blood. In the corpse already, this condition is not preserved unchanged, and therefore sentiency has vanished from it. In order to derive all psychical processes out of the Elements, one took hold of the doctrine of the three juices in the body – phlegm, bile and wind.¹⁰ It was taught that through phlegm there arises desire, through bile hatred, and through wind delusion. The manifoldness of life-forces that one experiences in incalculable alternation – now joy, now grief – was traced by the opponents of the Lokāyata to the power of good and bad actions which, according to the rigorous law of retribution, lead to joy and grief. This law was denied by the representatives of the Lokāyata, and they appealed to the incalculable accidental rise of bubbles in water for explaining the accidentality of joy and grief. They also asserted that natural feelings or experiences ascribe all these life-forces to no soul. Because, for example, when a man says: “I know” or when a man also says, “I am lean; I am fat”, he speaks of no soul, but only of a body. Because there is no soul.

The Buddhist teachings demanded a special comment, as they assumed no soul, but only a stream of consciousness, i.e., a connected series of knowledge-moments.¹¹ What was concerned here was not the contesting of belief in a soul – which was also denied by the opponent – but the proof that the series of knowledge-moments does not endure uninterrupted and does not continue from one existence to another. Because that was the proof of these schools in asserting in support of a continuance after death and of a retribution of good and bad actions. Accordingly, the representatives of the Lokāyata emphasised that the coming into existence of knowledge was bound up with a body and with entirely definite prerequisites. Therefore, no knowledge comes into existence in the embryo, because the sense-organs are not yet developed and there is no object (for them). So also knowledge is suspended in a state like that of swoon. Knowledge in an alleged rebirth depends, however, on an entirely another body and is exactly different, like the body, from an earlier knowledge. There is, therefore, as little connection as that in the knowledge of two different beings who live simultaneously near each other. It is also not right to trace back, as one does, the expression of passions and instinctive behaviour of small children to experiences in earlier births. For then a man must be able to remember earlier (former) births, not only in isolated cases asserted by the opponent, but in general, just as all people who were together in one village would remember about it in a similar way.

There is, therefore, no soul, no survival after death, and no retribution of good and bad deeds. When one speaks of such things, it is only a misuse of words, which originally implied something quite different.¹² The ‘other world’ (paraloka), which word in India denotes a peculiar meaning, is nothing else than another place, another time, and another condition.¹³ Hell is nothing else than grief full of agony. Deliverance is the destruction of the body. The highest god is an almighty King.

The adherents of the Lokāyata developed and proved their doctrines like this. But there were not only systematic explanations or proofs with which they met their opponents. They also knew how to use especially effectually the weapon of derision and knew how to make the opponent a laughing stock. Their derision, in the first place, was directed against the sacrificial cult of the Brāhmaṇas. They said, for example:¹⁴ “If a man, after leaving the body, enters into a world beyond, why does he not again come back, driven by the impulse of love or affection to his relatives?” But the belief in the other world is meaningless. Because, if “a sacrificer would reap the reward of heaven, after the sacrificer himself, the sacrificial act and the implements of sacrifice are long gone (into the limbo of the past), the trees which were consumed by a forest conflagration would as well bear fruit.” Equally meaningless it is to offer an ancestral sacrifice to the dead. “If the ancestral offering of worship would be the source of gratification to the dead, then one could as well feed the flame of a lamp which is extinguished.” “Fine, indeed, would be any such effect on things which are distant. Then a man need not provide provisions (of food, etc.) to people who go on a journey. Because, then, nothing would prevent one from satisfying him (his hunger and thirst) by an ancestral offering of worship performed at home! But it is all a swindle! The ceremonies for the dead which the Brāhmaṇas perform have been performed to provide themselves with means of maintenance. There is nothing else in that.” Generally, “the fire-sacrifice, the three Vedas, the bundle of three sticks which the Brāhmaṇas carry, and the besmearing with ashes serve only as a means of livelihood for men who lack intelligence and energy for any other occupation.” “The mortifications, the different self-torments, the self-discipline, the deceits for sense-satisfaction, and sacrificial acts like the fire-sacrifice are regarded as childish play” by reasonable men. If really that would have been true, “if” really as the Brāhmaṇas assert, “the animal slaughtered in the sacrifice would go to heaven, why does not, then, the sacrificer kill his father in order to despatch him to heaven?” But “the authors of the Vedas are none else than the three categories of the crackers of jests, rogues, and night-sneakers, when they utter their unintelligible gossip, their ‘jarbharī‘ and ‘turbharī‘,”¹⁵ passing it off for the words of wise men. That is why one should not believe in anything of this kind, but should live happily as long as life lasts. There is nothing which does not expire after death. Once the body becomes ashes, then there is no recurrence.

Thus represents itself in broad features the doctrine of the Lokāyata in the older period. Its thought-processes are simple and have rarely interfered in philosophical development. But they have continually found adherents, and their school has maintained its ground through whole centuries. Its situation becomes more difficult at the end of the classical period of Indian philosophy, when logical and epistemological questions moved to the forefront of interest and when every system was compelled to take them into consideration, on which their systems were founded. The adherents of the Lokāyata also could not escape this demand. Originally, they made light of the fact. In the sūtras of Bṛhaspati,¹⁶ it is said: “Inference is not the means of right knowledge.” One, therefore, appealed only to sense-experience and simply dismissed the further assertions of the opponent. One could do it so long as inferences which were arrived at by antagonistic schools were simple inferences by analogy. It was enough to show the faultiness of every conclusion in order to decline every inference as unreliable. Things, however, were different as the opponent developed firmly grounded scientific doctrines forming conclusions. One had to discuss these; nay, one was compelled to establish his own doctrine differently from what he had done hitherto and to defend it. Partly one tried to hold fast to the old line, as, for instance, when one explained:¹⁷ “The aphorisms of Bṛhaspati have only this aim, viz., to refute the opponent”. But in the majority of cases, one decided to discuss the doctrine of inference and to take it over at least in part. This desertion of the original attitude led, in no way, to the consequence of the decline of the system. The taking up of foreign thoughts and occupation with them led, on the contrary, to regular activity and to a blossoming up of a literature richer than hitherto. We have, however, reached with it a turning point in development, at which we must provisionally halt.

Also among the other systems with which we have dealt, we have seen that at the end of the classical period of Indian philosophy, about the middle of the first post-Christian millennium, system-building in essentials had come to a close and had been at a standstill. In its place, there stepped into the forefront the theory of knowledge, and there developed a lively and fruitful activity in this sphere for several more centuries. The presentation of this development, which appears to a certain extent as a second blossoming of the classical period, we have hitherto put in the background, in order to handle it separately as an independent section of Indian philosophy. Now we see that the Lokāyata also came round to the same path about the same time. But before we can go over to the presentation of these sections of development, there remains for us a group of systems to handle, which later sprang forth and to which we have referred up to this time, but which developed themselves to so great importance and scrambled for the lead through several centuries – namely, the systems of the Buddhists.

Bibliography

• Hillebrandt, A.: Zur Kenntnis der indischen Materialisten. Aufsätze zur Kultur- und Sprachgeschichte vornehmlich des Orients, Ernst Kuhn gewidmet, München 1916, p. 24–26.
• Tucci, G.: Linee di una Storia del Materialismo Indiano. Memorie della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Serie V, Vol. 17, Fasc. 7 (1923) and Serie VI, Vol. 2, Fasc. 10 (1929).
• Ruben, W.: Materialismus im Leben des alten Indien, Acta Orientalia XIII, Leiden 1935, p. 128–162 and 177–225.
• Dakshinaranjan Shastri: A Short History of Indian Materialism, Calcutta 1930.

Translations are not mentioned; apart from a few concise works recently found in later times, the literature of the system is lost. Nothing much is to be remarked about my presentation. In a history of Indian Philosophy, the systematic materialism of the Lokāyata must naturally stand at the middle point or centre. A grouping of scattered utterances of materialistic views has no value, because therethrough no essentially new features come forth. For systematic Lokāyata, the most important thing is the assembling and making use of available fragments. It is still, up to this time, not performed in a satisfactory form, but is not difficult for older times. Difficulties present themselves only in post-classical times, where thought-processes become complicated and isolated authors and works become available for consideration. But that falls already outside the limits of the present volume.