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by Jayaram V
"Lokayata is always the only sastra; in it
only perceptual evidence is authority; the elements are earth,
water, fire and air; wealth and enjoyment are the objects of
human existence. Matter can think. There is no other world.
Death is the end of it all." - Prabodhachandrodaya
"When attempts are made to smother the
intellectual curiosity of people, the mind of man rebels against
it, and the inevitable reaction shows itself in an impatience of
all formal authority and wild outbreak of the emotional life
long repressed by the discipline of the ceremonial religion." -
S Radhakrishnan
"Perception is our only knowledge or real
religion. Talking about our soul for ages will never make
us know it. There is no difference between theories and atheism.
In fact, the atheist is the truer man." - Swami Vivekananda
"Veiled by My Yogamaya, I am not seen by all.
Hence these foolish men do not know Me as the unborn and
imperishable Supreme Self - The Bhagavadgita (Ch 6.25).
During the post Vedic period, around the time some of the
principal
Upanishads were composed, ancient India witnessed the rise of many
heterodox schools, which were mostly atheistic or materialistic or agnostic in
nature and enjoyed a strong following of their own. They questioned the religious authority of the Vedas and
challenged the
prevailing beliefs and practices of the orthodox schools of Hinduism based on
the empirical evaluation of their sensory perceptions and rejection of the traditional
means of knowledge. They thrived in an environment of religious
and intellectual freedom, which was characteristic of Indian society
since ancient times. The heterodox schools emerged partly in response to the
growing weight of the Vedic ceremonies and weaknesses of the Vedic society which
relied heavily upon ceremonial fare and privileges based upon hereditary rights. As S.Radhakrishnan
stated, it was the time during which the "faith of centuries was dissolving like
a dream," as the "hold of the authority" was loosening and "traditional bonds"
were weakening.
Ancient Indian society was not without its own shackles.
People had to live within the framework of the caste system and
cope with the dominance of priestly families, who wielded
enormous religious authority based on scriptural knowledge to
keep the rulers and the people alike within certain bounds. There was also
the fear of retribution and the possibility of social disapproval, which kept people
adhere to their ancient gods and ways of life. But the Vedic tradition was oppressive enough
only when people were willing to remain within its rigid confines and adhere to the beliefs and practices it
advocated. Those who were bold enough to break out
of the orthodox and the traditional mindset and challenge the excesses of the Vedic
puritanism had enough opportunities outside its pale of
influence to explore new ways of experimenting with the truth
and cultivating their distinct worldviews.
Ancient India was a like a melting pot of diverse thoughts
and cultures as is the USA today where new age religions and
experimental philosophies seem to sprout like mushrooms after a rainy
day. India was then a land of opportunity and religious
freedom, with layers upon layers of complexity built into its
social structure and religious milieu that made it difficult for
any religious or political authority to thrive without
opposition and fair amount of critical evaluation. The
organic growth of religious institutions and the existence of
diverse linguistic and racial groups ensured that the rulers
would be better off if they remained above partisanship in
social and religious matters. The rulers were
mostly religious, but prudent enough to confine themselves to temporal matters and
limit their interference in the
religious beliefs of the people they ruled. Sometimes if they
tried to enact the role of divine authority, they did so with
tolerance and humility. They worshipped gods, promoted
religious debates, prized the advice of the priests and supported religious institutions according to their
beliefs and values, but did not deem it necessary to enforce their
own beliefs and thoughts upon others. They
considered it prudent to let people work for their own salvation
in their own individual ways or according to the divine law
(dharma), rather than according to the wishes of their temporal
authority which they found to be too fragile in times of war and
unrest to replace the law of God (dharma).
Religious freedom and freedom of enquiry led to a great churning of human thought
in ancient India and culminated in the rise of
many heterodox schools of philosophy around 6th Century B.C.E.
Some of them rejected speculative philosophies and relied
exclusively upon sensory experience to make sense of the world
and find solutions to the problems of human life purely in human terms. They
rejected all notions of speculation and imagination and relied
upon tangible proof and rationale methods to arrive at truth, an
approach that is very similar to the one followed by the
scientists of the modern world.
The paradox of religion
A million theories exist today as to the nature of God, after
life, soul, heaven and hell. People get emotional, societies
dissolve into turmoil, nations go to war and crowds turn into
frenzy because of differences in beliefs that cannot be resolved
peacefully through debate or discussion. Each religion or school of philosophy holds on to its own specific beliefs and practices
tenaciously and relies upon faith rather than rationality to perpetuate itself. In this conflicting medley of
thoughts and emotions, people are simply confused and
lost because they do not know what to follow and whether it is worthwhile to
spend their valuable time for some future good or use it here and now
for their own enjoyment.
People faced similar dilemmas
in the past also. The conflict between self-interest and moral
responsibility, or enjoyment and enlightenment, has always been
present ever since
man became civilized and established social and religious
institutions.
Religions thrive on faith and belief. Religions promote
unconditional submission and obedience. Religions offer future
rewards for present actions and try to bridle the inhuman in
human so that transformation can be accomplished within the
personality and new vistas of spiritual experience may
present themselves to the adherents. But when man exercises his
reason truthfully, all religions begin to crumble. When people begin to explore and enquire, faith without conviction begins to shake and the scriptures show deep crevices in
their presentation of theological and spiritual truths.
This is a problem with which
mankind has been battling since the earliest times. Reason is
what sets man apart and reason is what pits him against
established traditions of religious institutions, especially
when they demand unconditional surrender and unquestionable
loyalty, without satisfying the intellectual curiosity of
educated minds. It is a significant dilemma that cannot be
resolved without the exercise of fear or hope. We need
proof to have faith and we cannot have proof unless we have
faith. This is a paradox that has no simple solutions, till
spiritual transformation and transcendental states of
consciousness become more frequent, common and verifiable among
a vast number of human beings.
From nature's perspective, religion is unnatural because it
dictates man to deny himself or undo himself by sacrificing his own interests
and assume social and moral responsibility for the world and the
people in general with no immediate and apparent gains in return.
Religion is a dull and dry subject to which we do not turn
easily. It does not actually appeal to
our base emotions or interests, unless we are shaken by some
disturbing developments in our lives. It is hard to be religious
or spiritual, because
religion seems to unsettle us by demanding changes in our
thinking and behavior to which we are not accustomed. It aims to reengineer
our lives or reverse
the process of creation by subjecting us to an arduous process
of transformation and reconditioning. From a materialistic perspective,
it looks regressive and depressing to make personal sacrifices
for some ultimate good that is not quantifiable in material
terms.
When you practice religion, you swim against the currents
of life with no certainty of you ever reaching the shore.
We do not turn to religion seriously,
unless it adds some meaning and value to our lives. People like
to be part of some religion outwardly because it helps
them identify with certain religious values and feel affinity
with certain groups. When
religions fail to provide these, people begin to look for
alternatives and move towards more radical solutions that are
less taxing upon their minds and bodies.
No wonder, in ancient India atheism was considered to be the way
of the world or the most popular public opinion because it
demanded no austerities or the rigors of the ascetic life.
The heterodox schools
The Buddhist texts mention the names of a few heterodox
teachers such as the following who rose to prominence during the post Vedic period of
ancient India.
- Sanjaya who questioned the existence of soul and focused
on attainment of peace.
- Purana Kasyapa who believed in creation without cause,
moral relativism and passive nature of soul.
- Ajita Kesa Kambali who proposed a
materialistic philosophy discrediting intuitive knowledge,
Vedic rituals and enlightenment of perfected teachers, and
acknowledged only four elements, earth, water, fire and air.
- Gosala who preached fatalism and predetermined
progression of events over which men had no control.
- The Carvakas, an atheistic and materialistic
school, who acknowledged only
sense perception (pratyaksha) and considered happiness or enjoyment as the ultimate goal of
human life.
- Prakhadu Katyana who identified soul as the sixth element and
considered pain and pleasure stemmed from the permutation
and combination of the elements.
The Carvakas
Of them the Carvakas were the most prominent. They proposed a
down to earth approach to the enjoyment of life that stood in
stark contrast to the theological and other worldly
idealism of spiritual philosophies which suggested self-negation
and sacrifices as the means to liberation. They rose to prominence some time during the post
Rigvedic period, but certainly before the birth of the Buddha (567 B.C.E). The Carvakas
got their name
for their sophistry and polemical disputation. The word "carvaka"
means sweet tongued or those who chew their words carefully. They were
vehemently opposed to the
Vedic establishment and its single-minded preoccupation with the
appeasement of divinities through sacrificial ceremonies. We
cannot call the Carvakas aspiritual in the modern sense because
they believed in the existence of a soul that lived for a lifetime and died,
in contrast to the Vedic belief in the existence of an immortal
soul or the Buddhist belief in the non-existence of soul. They
considered the sole purpose of human existence ought to be
happiness and harmony by avoiding pain and suffering to the
extent possible. For them spiritual
practice meant keeping the mind and the body stable and healthy
by maximizing pleasure and enjoyment and minimizing pain and
suffering not only to oneself but to others. Because of their popularity, materialism and worldly
orientation,
the Carvakas were also
called Lokayatas (proponents of worldliness).
We do not know much about how the school of Carvakas came into existence. According to
tradition it was originally founded by Brihaspati
and made popular by Carvaka, after whom the school got
its name. Brihaspati (of the Vedic pantheon) was probably a mythical figure while Carvaka seems to be a historical person with a following of his
own. The teachings of this school were compiled into Carvaka Sutra or the Lokayata Sutra.
It might have been composed by Carvaka or his followers. But we
are not sure of its authorship. Unfortunately the text is
presently unavailable. The Carvaka philosophy was distinctly
Indian, although it shared some common features with the
theories of Ionians, Atomists and the Sophists who flourished in
Greece between 6th and 4th Century B.C.E.
Our knowledge of Carvakas comes to us mostly from four
traditional works: Krsna
Misra's Prabodha Chandrodaya, Madchavacharya's Sarva Darsana
Samgraha, Sankara's Sarva Siddhanta Samgraha and Jayarasi
Bhatta's Tattvopaplavasimha. These works
were composed long after the Carvakas ceased to be a force to
reckon with in the social mileu of ancient India. Excluding
Jayarasi, the authors of
these texts had a strong contempt for the Carvakas and
referred to them in their works either to refute their ideas or
present them in a contrasting way so that they could present
their own philosophies in a meaningful manner. They are therefore not very
helpful to understand the true significance of the Carvakas and
their role in the development of Indian philosophy. The very
fact that the philosophy of the Carvakas was often used for
juxtaposition (purvavada) proves the extent of their influence
and importance in the intellectual circles of ancient India.
The philosophy of the Carvakas
The Charvakas rejected the authority of the Vedas, which they
declared to be the work of "buffoons, knaves and demons." They
vehemently opposed the sacrificial ceremonies and the notion of
subjecting the mind and the body to suffering for spiritual
advancement. They
argued that there was neither God nor Soul. Creation was without
cause and objects of the world come into existence because of
material processes involving the aggregation and segregation of
the four elements, namely earth, fire, water and
air. This was in contrast to the traditional belief that the
elements were five in number, including ether
(akasa), the fifth element, which the Carvakas rejected because
it was imperceptible
and immaterial.
The Carvakas considered death to be the end of all life.
According to them, there was nothing beyond death. Karma, gods and goddesses,
heaven and hell were mere illusions of the human mind, invented
by "the imposters of other schools of thought," to
mislead the humanity. Direct perception was the only way of
knowing things. All other means of knowing, such as inference
(anumana),
testimony (sabda pramana) of the scriptures, intuition and dreams, were false, unreliable and erroneous.
The senses were the only reliable means of true and sure
knowledge. They recognized two kinds of perception, the external and the
internal. In the external perception the senses
were in direct contact with the objects of the world, while in
the internal perception the mind
intercepted the knowledge presented by the senses. The Carvakas' rejection of inference and testimony were widely
criticized by the scholars of various schools of Hinduism and
Buddhism and is considered to be one of its main weaknesses.
The Carvakas denied the existence of an immortal soul or
atman that transmigrated from birth to birth. According to them,
the soul was mortal (dehatma), and not
separate or independent from the body. It perished at the time
of death. The living body was but
the soul and it was subject to
death and disintegration. The mind or consciousness was an
extension or secretion of the matter, just as the wine of
fermented grains, while thoughts,
feelings and emotions were expressions of the body like the
color or scent of a flower.
The Carvakas broke with the tradition completely and advocated
against caste system, performance of sacrificial rituals,
wearing of religious marks and observation of religious duties.
Since they did not believe in the existence of karma or heaven
and hell, they asked people to disregard moral scruples and
make enjoyment the sole purpose of their lives. Since enjoyment
cannot thrive in a sea of suffering, they implied social
responsibility by asking the adherents to practice non-violence and non-grievous
attitude towards others. The Savra
Siddhanta Samgraha summarizes the Carvakas' emphasis on
enjoyment in the following words1.
The heaven of enjoyment lies in
eating delicious food, keeping company of young women, using
fine clothes, perfumes, garlands, sandal paste, etc.
The pain of
hell lies in the troubles that arise from enemies, weapons,
diseases, while liberation (moksha) is death which is the
cessation of life-breath.
The wise therefore ought not to take pains
on account of that (liberation); it is only the fool who wears
himself out by penances, fasts, etc.
Chastity and other such ordinances are
laid down by clever weaklings. Gifts of gold and land, the
pleasure of invitations to dinner, are devised by indigent
people with stomachs lean with hunger.
The construction of temples, houses for
water supply, tanks, wells, resting places and the like, is
praised only by travelers not by others.
The Agnihotra ritual, the three Vedas, the
triple staff carried by the priests, the ash-smearing, are the
ways of gaining livelihood for those who are lacking in
intellect and energy.
If a beast slain in the Jyotistoma rite
will itself go to heaven, why then does the sacrificer not offer
his own father immediately?
While life remains let a man live happily, let
him eat ghee (clarified butter), even if he runs into debt. When the body turns to
ashes how can it ever return again?
The wise should enjoy the pleasures of
this world through the proper visible means of agriculture,
keeping cattle, trade, political administration, etc.
The Carvakas were the most well organized and vehement
proponents of atheism, materialism, naturalism, liberalism and
individualism of the ancient world. They were not skeptical
about their beliefs. Hence we cannot label them as agnostic.
They enjoyed popular support.
Although their literature and way of life are lost to us, their
influence upon ancient Indian society can be seen in the rise of
heterodox schools such as Jainism and Buddhism which were
essentially atheistic in nature and shared some beliefs of the Carvakas. The Carvakas were one of the multitude of sects that
thrived in ancient India as a reaction against established
religious traditions that lost their shine due to certain
excesses and decadence. They advocated a philosophy that was
rooted in the immediate experience and evolved as a natural and
practical
response to the fragile and flitting nature of life in general.
Conclusion
It may be surprising to know for many in the west that the
ancient Indian philosophies were not particularly religious or
theistic. This was because till the emergence of Buddhism the
concept of organized and monolithic religion was alien to the
Indian tradition. The Carvaka, Mimansa, Samkhya and Buddhism
were particularly atheistic, while some like the classical Yoga and
Jainism did not acknowledge a creator God. The Vedas focused on
the worship of a multitude of individual deities, where as the
Upanishads envisioned Brahman, a Supreme God of universal
dimensions, a Creator God who is One and all at the same time.
Saivism and Vaishnavism personified Brahman as Siva and Vishnu
respectively and advocated bhakti or singleminded devotion as
the best means to liberation. Worshippers of Shakti on the other
hand, saw the Mother Goddess as the supreme, eternal, universal
and primeval matter and energy dynamic, encompassing and
inhabiting all the manifestation, and capable of suffusing the
human mind and body with higher forms of energy and
consciousness.
We cannot judge the Carvakas to be right or wrong, simply
because they did not believe in the existence of God. At some
point of time in our lives, a situation arises when we suffer from bouts of self-doubt and despair.
On such occasions, we become atheists for the duration our
faith wavers. The reaction may be
momentary or may last for long, depending upon how deeply we are
shaken or frustrated.
A person who professes to have faith but is insincere
and dishonest to himself and God is not different from an
atheist. The world is full of people who practice religion
for purposes other than for which it is
intended, which is to cultivate divine qualities or purity (sattva)
through the practice of divine law (dharma) and facilitate our
spiritual transformation (moksha). An atheist is more sincere
and honest in his approach towards his beliefs and worldview
than them. He is willing to bare his intentions and risk his
reputation.
Of the four aims of human
life (purusharthas) projected by the Vedic religion, the Carvakas
aimed for only two, artha (wealth) and kama (sexual pleasure)
and ignored the other two, dharma (religious duty) and moksha
(liberation). There are many who profess to be religious, but spend their entire lives in
pursuit of the same two aims (wealth and pleasure) with the
assumption that they can practice the remaining two (religious
duty and liberation) at some time in future when they are old
and retired. They are not
different from the Carvakas, except that they live in a state of
denial.
Atheism is a phase in the evolution of life and intelligence.
The animals have no religion, but according to Hindu, Jain and
Buddhist beliefs they
continue to evolve according to their deeds. Human beings are
not judged by the religion they practice but by the deeds they
perform. Pleasure is not a sin. Even by Hindu standards, it is
one of the four aims of human life. The Carvakas preached
enjoyment as the main purpose of human life. But they also
recommended non-violence and responsible living by practicing normal occupations
that were conducive to both personal enjoyment and social
welfare. We arrive at theism through atheism. This is an
established fact. It is why we have initiation ceremonies in
almost all traditions.
The atheists and materialists of ancient India were against moral pretentions and
exploitation of human sentiment with the use of speculative theology.
But they were not
against humanity or indiscriminately hedonistic. They preached non-violence and avoidance of
harm and suffering to others because one could not truly enjoy
life by inflicting suffering upon others. They were also not
entirely indifferent to the need for moral and social
responsibility as the outcome of evil and immoral behavior was
within the grasp of the mind and the senses and universally
verifiable through direct perception. They preached against
blind faith and superstition and relied upon empirical evidence to arrive at
the truths concerning life, which is also the hallmark of modern science. The Carvakas may not be correct in their interpretation of God and
soul and their rejection of inference, testimony and other
means of knowledge, because from experience we know that our
senses have their own limitations, but their reliance upon objectivity to
arrive at truths concerning human life cannot be disregarded nor
their criticism of the excesses of traditional religions,
precipitated frequently by the corruption of the human mind.
Suggested Further Reading
Footnotes
1. Sarvadarshana Samgraha as quoted by
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Radhakrishnan,
S., and Moore, Charles A. A Source Book in Indian
Philosophy, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press,
1957, and
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Richard King, Indian Philosophy An
Introduction to the Hindu and Buddhist Thought, Georgetown
University Press, 1999.
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