This adds to the total fund of happiness including that of the practiser. From the first breath to the last fill life with healthy pleasure making sustained efforts and judicious distribution of the savouring of pleasures among the senses is the Chaarvaaka thought in a nutshell. Eat, drink and be merry, enjoy the delights of the flesh, find the optimum level your body can adjust to and stick to that level. Participate in the creation and appreciation of art, music, literature and lead as full a life as possible. While countering the argument that the Chaarvaakas opposed all that was good in the Vedic tradition, Dale Riepe says, “It may be said from the available material that Chaarvaakas hold truth, integrity, consistency and freedom of thought in the highest esteem.” [The Naturalistic Tradition of Indian Thought, Motilal Banarasidas, Varanasi, p75]

Spokesmen, Original Texts Destroyed No original text of the Chaarvaaka School of philosophy has been available for many centuries now. Chaarvaaka literature has all been destroyed, but informative collections and works on philosophical systems and texts of other schools, hostile or otherwise, also mention several details of the Chaarvaaka School. In modern times scholars have reconstructed the Chaarvaaka thought covering the entire arena of human life.

Systems of ancient Indian thought can be divided into two broad classes: theistic and atheistic. These two antonyms have theos or god in them but the Sanskrit words aastika and naastika only mean believing in a concept and not so believing. The Chaarvaaka thought, Buddhism and Jainism are major atheistic branches and Vedaanta and others are major theistic branches of philosophy surviving today.

The Sanskrit word Chaarvaaka is generally understood to be a compound of two words chaari and vaak; chaari means sweet, attractive and vaak means speaking. Some other meanings are also ascribed to the word, but ‘sweet speaking’ is the most plausible. This school of thought was also called Lokaayata probably from pre-Vedic times. Lokaayata would broadly mean ‘prevalent among people’. It is almost certain that the sage Brihaspati, the preceptor of the gods, founded and preached the Lokaayata thought. In Mahaabhaarata there is an ancient story of Brihaspati presiding over a sacrifice conducted by king Uparichar Vasu. In it Brihaspati did not allow animal-killing. In those ancient days gods and non-gods had opposite views about sacrifices. This shows that Brihaspati was opposed to ritual and had only agreed to preside over the sacrifice passively not to cause tension. There was no question of gods being venerated and non-gods despised. Ancient texts like Brhati, a commentary on Saabarbhaashya, Sarvadarsanasangraha, etc, mention Brihaspati as the profounder and champion of the Chaarvaaka doctrine. On the one hand, Brihaspati was propagating the principles of living an honest, happy and prosperous life discarding ideas of unperceived things like Isvara, the other world, various wasteful violent and non-violent rituals. Whilst, on the other, the think-tank of gods was engaged in formulating various sacrifices and rituals, a rigid caste-system, gender-prejudice causing untold misery to women in general and widows in particular, and such other disasters.

Parasuraama, a braahmana, killed his mother on the orders of his father, vowed to annihilate all Kshatriyas, the next caste down the line, and fulfilled it. Cruelty and hatred of womankind personified, and yet he is revered as god’s incarnation. Other gods also exhibited malice; details of which are found in relevant larger books.

In the mounting opposition to him, Brihaspati’s wife Taaraa was kidnapped by Soma, the king of the Dvijas. Brihaspati won her back by defeating Soma. In Rigveda [Mandala 10 / Suktas 35, 36] this entire sad episode is depicted first by Brihaspati’s wife [35] and then by Brihaspati himself [36].

The rift between Suras and Asuras kept on widening for generations. The asuras were peace-loving, more cultured and were consequently defeated like all more advanced [save militarily] peoples being defeated by less advanced ones in history. During this long conflict several Asura kings like Hiranyakasipu, Virochana, Bali and Vena were killed and some like Prahlaada were converted. Bali was indeed so famous in mythology as a benevolent ruler whose policies made the farmers industrious and rich that on the Balipratipada day [falling in 1997 on November 1] he is worshipped even today. In Mahaabhaarata a Chaarvaaka who was a friend of Duryodhana was burned alive. This chaarvaaka was one of the few descendants of the then ancient Chaarvaakas as per Krishna, the the god of Mahaabhaarata [Shantiparva, Adhyaayas 38,39]. These incidents are part of ancient history although no definite date can be assigned. The fact, however, is well documented that Brihadratha Maurya, a descendant of the illustrious Chandragupta, a so-called Sudra king, was killed by his so-called Brahmana army general, Pushyamitra Sunga, in 187 BC. It is a safe conjecture that the earlier events took place through many centuries before that as an ongoing process.

If the kings and spokesmen of the Chaarvaaka principles were ruthlessly killed or made ineffective, we can imagine what havoc must the opponents have played with their literature. As already stated, all original books propagating the chaarvaaka doctrine were destroyed. This fate befell other similar books, too. Kautilya’s Arthasastra, a monumental epitome said to be authored in 4th century BC by Chandragupta’s preceptor Chaanakya, was discovered as late as in 1909. Several plays of the pre-Kalidasa Sanskrit dramatist Bhaasa [ca 1st century BC] were discovered only in 1913.

The Chaarvaakas and Harappa and Mohenjo-daaro Civilisations Now just a glance at an important historical feature and then to verbal grips to the Chaarvaaka values proper. The glance is reserved for their relationship with the lost ancient civilisation of Harappa and Mohenjo-daaro. Dr R N Dandekar, the doyen of scholars on Sanskrit, Indology and Ancient India, remarks that the roots of pre-Vedic atheistic cultures must be traced in the non-Aryan cultures. The excavations of Mohenjo-daaro and Harappa clearly reveal an urban civilisation with flourishing trade and commerce. In Rigveda the lord of the gods Indra is called Purandara which means a destroyer of cities. This shows that Indra, leading the Suras, eliminated the stable, peaceful and prosperous Asura cities protected by battlements. Vedic civilisations could have inherited the progressive, non-Vedic one, but instead it brought it to a final finish because the Vedics were dominated by priests, inequality among castes and insistence on violent sacrifices bringing imagined other-worldly benefits whereas the non-Vedic cultures insisted on living a joyous life putting in all necessary efforts. Mr Marshall, intimately connected with the excavations, says, “A comparison of the Indus and Vedic cultures shows incontestably that they were unrelated.” [Mohenjo-daaro and the Indus Civilisation, vol I, London, 1931, p110.] The Indus civilisation is obviously that flourishing under the Lokaayata banner. Mr Marshall also thinks it essential to rewrite India’s ancient history. In view of the startling disclosures in the excavations [Ibid, p77-8], he says, “Anyone walking for the first time through Mohenjo-daaro might fancy himself surrounded by the ruins of some present-day working town of Lancashire” [Ibid, p15].

As will be detailed later, Vaarta was an important branch of the Chaarvaaka learning and it included trade, agriculture, and the rearing of animals. “The weights and measures in the Harappa and Mohenjo-daaro civilisation were made with greater accuracy and consistency than those of Klam and Mesopotamia.” [Ibid, p37.] The other branches were pretty advanced too. Vedic people worshipped the cow but in the poem Naishdhiya a Chaarvaaka says, “Do not those who worship the cow consider themselves meaner than the animals?”[p17-67.]

Within the limits of this article I must summarise that in political systems, health, equality between the sexes and all other mundane matters the Chaarvaaka culture as reflected in the Harappa and Mohenjo-daaro civilisations was of a very high order. Only one aspect it lacked. And what was it? Whereas in the West Asian countries money and thought were lavished on the building of magnificent temples for the gods and on the palaces and tombs of kings, the picture was quite different in the Indus valley, where the finest structures were erected for the conveniences of the citizens. “No buildings have so far been discovered in the Indus valley which may be definitely regarded as temples and even those doubtfully classed as such have yielded no religious relics. There were no shrines, altars, or any definite cult objects.” [The Cultural Heritage of India, vol I, p111, 189.] Words are superfluous.

Systems of Proving Truth Coming to the Chaarvaaka thought proper, let us first see how they verified the veracity of facts and objects.

The Sanskrit word for authority which makes anything true is pramaana. The Chaarvaakas accept direct perception as the surest method to prove the truth of anything. This perception is the result of our five senses of knowledge getting in contact with the object of knowledge: the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. They are our primary sources of knowledge. Our intellects and emotions are respectively our thinking, remembering and feeling faculties which analyse and synchronise our primary knowledge. Emotions are broadly divided into good and bad: love, goodness, etc are good whereas anger, cruelty, selfishness etc are normally bad. This entire spectrum can be summed up in one word: experience.

But the knowledge derived from direct perception is extremely limited. It will be impossible to conduct oneself on the basis of this limited ambit. The sunrise, the flowing rivers, conditions in other countries and thousands of other things and facts are assumed to be true by us, but we perceive at a given time only a few of them, the rest are known to us either by logical inference or by the word of a knowledgeable person: the necessary condition being that the facts belong strictly to the perceivable world. There can be no inference or verbal proof about facts or things not perceived at any time by the generality of people. This condition is very important; it constitutes the difference between the Chaarvaakas and the other schools. By this rule, the Chaarvaakas exclude from their range of knowledge all other-worldly items like isvara, heaven, hell, sacrifices, prayers, chanting god’s name, visiting places of worship etc.

This clear, unambiguous stand closes all avenues of hypocrisy.

The Vedaanta says brahma satyam jagan mithyaa jivo brahmaiva naaparah [brahma is truth, the world false; soul is brahma itself, not any other thing.] Accordingly, what everyone can perceive is unreal and an imagined entity called brahma which nobody has ever perceived is real.

What travesty of truth! What perverse logic! As the legend has it, when the foremost exponent of Advaita Vedaanta, Sankaraachaarya, ran away from a ferocious elephant, he was asked why he ran away although the elephant was false. In reply he quibbled, gajopi mithyaa palaayanapi mithyaa! [the elephant is false, but the running is also false!]

This is ridiculous as a doctrine. If only the perceived objects are recognised as known, as per the Chaarvaaka principle, the elephant, the Vedaantin’s body, his running away can be said to be known and the Vedaantin’s statement gajopi mithyaa etc is all a figment of his imagination, unreal and non-knowledge. Let the Vedaantis advance one logical inference from this real world and we surrender to it. There is no place in the Chaarvaaka process to for any speculation or argument about anything not physically perceived or experienced. Inferences or verbal support must finally lead to the physical perception of the thing sought to be proved.

The theory embracing the essence of real human life to the exclusion of everything else has made the Chaarvaaka thought include every aspect of that life like trade, economics, political administration, agriculture, horticulture, etc .

The Buddha and Jain philosophies also did not believe in God, but the similarity ends there. Their views on man’s duty in life vastly differed from the Chaarvaaka ideal of deriving optimum enjoyment from life with honest effort and helping others to do the same.

Buddhism, Jainism vs Chaarvaakas Buddha proposed nirvana [a kind of salvation] as the goal of human life, believing in rebirth. Dr Ambedkar, a great exponent of Buddhism, found this and also his other thoughts on rebirth and karma out of tune with his other rationalistic concepts. He quoted the Buddha: “Nothing can give real happiness as nibbaana [a Pali word meaning nirvaana]. The laukik [common] conception of nirvaana was nothing but the satisfaction of man’s animal appetites. … To accept such a conception of nibbaana is wrong. For the satisfaction of appetites can result in creating more appetites. Such happiness was sure to bring more unhappiness. At the well-known fire-sermon at Gayaa he said, “all things are on fire, the fire of passion, the fire of hatred. There are certain misunderstandings about the Buddha’s doctrine of nibbaana. Some interpreters hold that nibbaana means extinction of all human passions which is equivalent to death.”

Dr Ambedkar does not approve of extinction of human passions, as any rational thinker would not, for fulfilment of passions within reasonable limits leads to joy. Hence he says, “The fire sermon says the passions are on fire. … It does not say that the passions must be extinguished completely. It says do not add fuel to the flame.” [Dr Ambedkar’s Writings and Speeches, vol.11, pp223-238.]

This is indeed sane advice, but is an unnecessary, confusing elaboration. Life and death are clearly understood, call them life and death, not nibbaana, which is parallel to Vedaanta’s moksha. Do not make simple things difficult by invoking terminology and then defining it.

Dr Ambedkar is considerably at pains to defend the doctrine of rebirth. He says, “Did the Buddha believe in rebirth? The answer is in the affirmative.” [Ibid, p333.] As a rational thinker Dr Ambedkar did not believe in rebirth, so he is constrained to explain away the concept against the evidence of the whole literature of Jaataka stories which describe Buddha’s lives leading to his Buddhahood.

In a word, Buddha is symbolised by karunaa [pity] just as Mahaavira is by penance, and self-abnegation. Image worship, prayers and most other rituals barring violent sacrifices and the caste-system were common to Vedaanta, Buddhism and Jainism except that the gods were different. The Chaarvaakas went the whole rational length and had no corresponding point at which those other schools could touch them. Adherents of the other branches could commit sins in their material life and atone for them by visiting or even building temples, etc. The Chaarvaakas had no option but to be righteous in their conduct, for otherwise they would be unhappy. Not for them the spiritual or other-worldly escape route of amassing merit.

One final, very important point and we are through with the Chaarvaakas’ theory of knowledge. The honest seeker of knowledge should always have the humility to change his opinion as per new available evidence. That is the scientific, rationalistic attitude. In the case of direct perception such instances will be very rare. A colour perceived as, say, yellow by even a careful, conscientious observer may ultimately turn out to be green after a keen scrutiny. In the case of inference, this proportion of wrong knowledge at the first step to be changed to correct knowledge later may be large. In the case of the authentic word of a reliable person it may be still larger, for in these processes there are several steps through which the checking will have to pass. For instance, in the classic example of a logical inference of the fire from the direct perception of smoke, the inference may be wrong as it comes, always ready to modify aspects of it if additional evidence warrants it. What we call truth proved by direct comprehension is indeed truth with reference to the available data.

Reasons for Belief in Unproved God Despite the absence of god’s existence several people including scientists and rationalists believe in him. They are usually described as ‘god-fearing’ which adjective aptly brings out the main reason for their attitude. These people have a built-in causeless fear of the unknown which is often coupled with the awe inspired by the absolutely wonderful creation of the universe. Not that this fear leads to anything useful.

Instead of realistically pigeonholing the question “Who created all this?”, unanswerable at least today, they try to answer it. There are innumerable such answers which are all proofless, and hence the different schools of philosophy. So long as these speculations are confined to the intellect there need be no objection. But many times they are used as instruments of religious hatred and lead to violence. As shown above, India has had its share of violence, intolerance, the most nerve-shattering instance of which has been the partition in 1947.

Man does not carry an inborn label of Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, and most saints and leaders are never tired of advising that his religion does not teach rivalry [Mazhab nahi sikhaata aapasme vair karnaa], a half-truth at its best, for most religious sects are mixed bags, comprising counsel to devote yourself to your god but imposing their exclusive sectarian ritual and opposing everything not pertaining thereto. Religious faith carries with it the instinct of proselytism, experienced in history countless times, or that of exclusion in favour of vested interests which is said to have prevented Kashmiri converts from returning to their original religion. Add the stupendous waste of time, energy and money involved, and you get a dismal baggage.

Another prominent reason why men tend to believe in an unseen, unproved god is that they need a support to conduct themselves through the uncharted, unknown future. Let this support be dumb and lifeless, paradoxically omnipotent, so that you can do anything and advertise it as the will of god. If you accept a man as your guide and philosopher, he can interfere with your will and make himself unwanted.

All these reasons for god are but weaknesses of the human mind. These are not shared with animals. Man’s intellect and emotions are vastly superior to those of animals but they can register forward or retrograde steps. The above pace is blatantly retrograde; it runs counter to man’s intellectual and emotional advance. Moreover it is immensely irrational and once you start on an irrational course you can go to any dangerous length, as exemplified in history’s warning lessons.

Most people perform religious rites as a formality continuing in their family for generations. God’s name is repeated thousands of times by many devotees seeking solace but all the time they cannot escape bodily needs like hunger and become distressed if they are not satisfied. If and when calamity strikes them, they either wail that god is not answering their prayers or console themselves that he is testing them. Tradition of belief in god is so firmly embedded in their minds that they cannot visualise their life in the proper perspective. Such is the grip of convention that in a gathering where everyone is clapping or shouting god’s name even non-believers are forced to follow suit if they have no courage to exhibit their conviction even silently against the vocal majority.

Sages chant endlessly that man’s real religion is humanity but, except for a small minority, never tell man that the other half of what he professes as his religion, such as the ritual, the sacrifices of animals [of which a sizeable number are performed even today] etc are all false. A devotee crushes a coconut before god’s image and a fanatic can mercilessly kill a goat or sometimes a human, chanting similar incantations. A couple of British researchers have brought out scores of authentic instances and proved that history is repeating itself in India, and that the medieval practice of child-sacrifice outlawed in 1865, has once again become part of the secret religious life of the subcontinent.

“The links between the killings are well documented: the Sanskrit verses, the symbols and names commonly scrawled in the victim’s blood at the murder scene, and the ritual nature of the murder. The confessions of the killers themselves point to the more extreme practices of the ancient eastern cult of Tantra, a movement within both Hinduism and Buddhism, … that venerates sacrifices – above all, human sacrifice – as the supreme offering.” [p36, The National Geographic, July 1992.] Read the following summary of a news item in The Times of India [13.10.1997, p8]: “The tradition of animal sacrifice still continues in many shrines of Orissa. … About 1300 animals were put to the sword on the Mahastami day at Sirlo; each worshipper was charged IRS 100 per animal.” The kurbaani in Islam is also large-scale animal-killing in the name of religion. The story of Sriyaala and Chaangunaa and that of Abraham offering their sons to god illustrates the remnant of the practice of killing confined in most cases to animals. Only god can issue such cruel orders for man’s other-worldly benefits.

The Soul Unreal, Unacceptable Of all the entities not actually perceived the soul is by far the most intriguing. True, you cannot feel its existence, but you can infer it, most people would say. It is incumbent upon you to answer the question, “What is the difference between a dead body and a living body?”. Most other schools of philosophy answer in one word, “the Soul”, and docket it in the same class as heaven, Brahma, etc, and put it at the centre of life. The Chaarvaakas who could not deny the difference between the dead body and the living body and recognised both as realities stopped their perception at the entity of death. A person lives, the same person dies, that is a perceived fact; finito. That is the end. In case you insist on using the word ‘soul’ call the living body a soulful body and the dead a soulless one. That is our direct comprehension. This is given in Sarvadarsanasangraha, Chaarvaaka Darsana [p15].

Man is born alone. He dies alone but in the interval he is usually joined by a woman, raises a family. The family’s happiness adds to the person’s joy. Caring for the family is thus a duty, the more pleasant you make it the greater joy you experience. The more persons he makes happy the greater a man he is. Extend your family to your society and to the world at large and try to enhance its delight. Ultimately, the doctrine boils down to this: there is no soul apart from the body because we have no experience of a separate soul nor can we infer it as there is no basic perception. The body is either living or dead. The dead body soon becomes a non-entity. If you insist on using the word ‘soul’ you can say the living body has a soul or life which vanishes along with the body when it is dead.

Fundamental Elements of Creation This may be the proper place to consider the four or five fundamental elements [Panchamahaabhutas] of which every created thing is supposed to be constituted. Thousands of years ago in his elementary state of knowledge man could discern five gross basic primary things which made up various objects, living and non-living. They were Prithvi [earth], solidity; aap [water], liquidity; tejas [fire], brightness or fieriness; vaayu [wind], movement and aakaasa [ether? or emptiness]. Whereas many branches of philosophy reduced everything to these five elements the Chaarvaakas recognised the validity of the first four. This theory is, strictly speaking, out of date, for chemistry has identified more than ninety elements and physics has discovered invisible electrons, protons, etc. Yet, if somebody says a book is made of the prithvi element or tea is made of aap the statements would be true, meaning a book is a solid and tea is a liquid. The old terminology is not used these days, but some pseudo-science buffs may employ it.

The Cause-Effect Relation Rejection of the soul apart from the body leads the Chaarvaakas to confine their thinking to this world only. Life after death in the other world, pending fruits of our actions in the present life and the application of the ‘as you sow, so you reap’ rule to our actions being extended to the previous birth and the next birth are all figments of the imagination of priests who profit by the ritual all these processes involve. The Chaarvaakas firmly denied all these theories because they cannot be directly perceived nor can they be inferred because of the absolute lack of perception. This does not mean that they denied the cause-result relationship. They accepted the ‘like cause like result’ [Karmavipaaka] rule, restricted it to this life and this world and admitted exceptions to that rule. After all, when a cause has taken place, the result can only be inferred – based on our own experience, and inference is susceptible to error in a few cases. In producing the results of actions many forces, unforeseen and out of control, spring into action and the result is their sum total. It is sometimes so complex that one does not know all the factors involved in any cause-effect relation. These forces do affect our calculations of what cause will lead to what effect. It is not as sure as that a very hot thing will burn our fingers. The cause is often like a pond of water which we wade in thinking it shallow but finding it is rather deep. This unknown element in life is called fate. The other schools of philosophy extended this element of uncertainty called fate to past and future births. This concept being evidenceless is firmly rejected by Chaarvaakas. A dark shadow of fatalism hovers over the followers of the other schools, who trace their misery in this life to their imagined sins in the past life. In contrast, the Chaarvaaka thought in this field will surely encourage self-help and strong effort and thus discourage fatalism.

A Paen to Naturalism Solving the problem of what cause lies at the root of the perceivable real world, most thinkers of the streams other than the Chaarvaaka stop at the incomprehensible Isvara. He/she is endowed with several imagined powers, each devotee ascribing his own catalogue of qualities, which everyday events readily disprove. Instead of this exercise in the guess-and-miss game, and running the risk of dichotomy, the Chaarvaakas say why not stop at the comprehensible real world and why not label it natural which it actually is.

To the objection that joy is always tainted with sorrow, so why not abandon both and become a recluse, the Chaarvaaka reply is: “Rice is covered with husk, but has anybody given up eating rice? No. The wise throw away husk and eat rice.” Nature has given man the freedom of judicious selection. Train your mind to use it. The great Chaarvaaka message in Akshapaadadarsana, Sarvadarsanasangraha is: dependence is slavery, independence is liberation. Aparaadhinataa Muktih [self-confidence is emancipation]. That is the natural state.

Consequently, of the four aims of life, viz., dharma, artha, kaama and moksha [spiritual prowess, economic excellence, satisfaction of normal urges and liberation from rebirth] only the second and the third are acceptable in the Chaarvaaka concept of values. As in other matters, in this item of the purposes of life, the Chaarvaaka ideal is eminently realistic and follows naturally like a river passing through many a confluence on the way and finally merging into the sea.

Dhamma and Religion In his The Buddha and his Dhamma Dr Ambedkar differentiates between dhamma and religion. “Dhamma [Pali for Sanskrit dharma] is righteousness, which means right relations between man and man in all spheres of life. … In other words society cannot do without dharma [p316].” We are reminded here of the Mahaabhaarata verse wherein a kingless state devoid of crime and punishment is said to have existed in hoary pre-Vedic times when dhamma was practised by all and it resulted in perfect amity.

As against this, as per Dr Ambedkar, “religion connotes belief in god, belief in soul, worship of god, propitiating god by prayers, ceremonies, sacrifices, etc”. This towering modern exponent of Buddhism discards the above-mentioned religion but wishes that society must have dhamma in active operation to keep it on the right path. Unfortunately, his busy life and the Chaarvaaka doctrine not being widely known in his day did not allow him to spare a glance for it. He was deeply impressed by the pity, love and non-violence, etc., of Buddha and embraced Buddhism. He probably ignored the deification of Buddha himself against his specific advice. Indeed all the unsavoury aspects enumerated by Dr. Ambedkar in the definition of religion are today practised in Buddhism, although devoid of violent killings. The emphasis of the Chaarvaaka doctrine on vigorous efforts to improve material conditions totally ignoring god and the so-called ‘spiritual’ life is thus missing in today’s Buddhistic ritual.

Hinduism is professed by a large majority of Indians. According to Dr. Ambedkar’s classification it can be divided into two broad streams: religion and dhamma. The traditional ritual in Hinduism has all the reprehensible features encountered in ‘religion’ by Dr. Ambedkar. Through the centuries it has undergone several changes outwardly but retains the core. In fact, many of these features are common to Hinduism and other religions. The details and names of gods differ. They all perform religious rites at birth, wedding, death and some other stations in life, although the verses chanted and the gods invoked may be different. The Chaarvaakas declare all these useless. Indeed, today they may even advise donation of eyes and bodies after death as that is their best use. Followers of other faiths proclaim that man’s unfulfilled desires will trouble him after death and his soul will be plunged in misery. To offset this the Hindus perform the ceremony called sraaddha, feeding and rewarding braahmanas through whom the dead souls are supposed to be satisfied. This practice is vastly prevalent today, though not an iota of evidence has come our way about its usefulness. There is no dearth of fantastic stories of supernatural miracles making the rounds, but in reality no miraculous incident has taken place. The teaching that the existing real life is unreal and the soul, and hell are real induces a contempt for life and living, especially for that of others, which leads to cruelty to others and in extreme cases to suicide, which in Vedaantic parlance is called samaadhi. The well-known Vedic institution of sacrifice [Yajna] belonged to both, religion and dharma. There were some sacrifices which were supposed to bring benefits to the host and some were supposed to benefit society. Priests presided over sacrifices and received fat purses. In many sacrifices animals were killed and consumed away as god’s offering. I would not have referred to this subject in more than a sentence, but I am constrained to bring out the vicious nature of sacrifices, because even today sacrifices are performed and thousands of people flock to worship them. In Bhimaasankara [Mahaarashtra] the atirudra mahayajna scheduled to start on 4th November 1997 was postponed as per the request of several devotees. The news item appeared in newspapers on 31st October 1997. News of other sacrifices occasionally appears in the papers.

The priests and others who profit from sacrifices and believe in them have a very deceptive way of arguing about the ‘good’ results from sacrifices. The sacrifice for a son is performed and later if the barren woman bears a son, the credit goes to the sacrifice. If she does not get a son, she is blamed for her sins in the past incarnation and the positive result of the sacrifice is promised in the next birth.

Sacrifices promising rains or such social benefits can be included in the Dhamma, but they are of course not acceptable to Dr Ambedkar. Sacrifices were criticised vehemently by Buddhism, Jainism and some progressive elements in the Vedic school. Some sacrifices like ashvamedha, [Satapatha Braahman, 13.2.2.1, 13.2.9.2] and gosava prescribe unspeakably obscene actions [Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol.XXX, parts III & IV, pp332-345]. Although such heinous aspects are no longer current, their very presence in the Vedas and other scriptures show they had reached the lowest level. Naturally, the Chaarvaakas, as per their statements in other books like Padmapuraana, have come down heavily on this institution. They have criticised the priests for their economic vested interests, the obscene procedures, etc. Coming to the Dhamma aspect of it, Hinduism has been for centuries labouring under one of the most shameful features organised by Dhamma: untouchability. The evolution of the rigid caste system among the Hindus was a blot on social justice and what are today called human rights. To start with there were four castes, Braahmana, the priests, Kshatriya, the warriors, Vaisya, the traders and Sudra, the slaves. The sudra caste was branded untouchable, and this was an accepted lawful feature of Hindu society until the first part of the nineteenth century. After getting independence, we made a law against untouchability prescribing stringent punishment to the guilty. Still, even today, cases of harassment of sudras are reported frequently. This shows that the scourge has lingered in the so-called high-caste minds. The tradition of Parasuraama, the killer of all available kshatriyas, and Raama, who was the next incarnation of god, and who administered the death penalty to Sambuka , a sudra, for uttering sacred incantations is thus kept painfully alive. Altering the poet’s lament one may reasonably mourn, “What high-caste men have made of low-caste men.”

The Chaarvaaka thinkers probed the root of the problem and denounced the caste-system. “What is this senseless humbug about the castes and the high and low among them when the organs like the mouth, etc in the human body are the same?” [Prabodhachandrodaya, 2.18]. Scores of such extracts can be culled from the Chaarvaaka opinion as voiced in other works.

Trade, Industry, Agriculture The Chaarvaaka scholars carried on research, termed Aanvikshiki, into every branch of knowledge and developed it elaborately. They penetrated every subject in detail, and weighing the pros against the cons arrived at a balanced judgment. As specified earlier they considered artha [finance] and kaama [satisfaction of passions] as the two purposes of life, and discarded the other two dharma [religion] and moksha [salvation], proclaimed by the Vedic thinkers. As the builders of the great, prosperous Harappa and Mohenjodaaro civilisations it can be safely assumed that they had attained a high degree of expertise in individual earning, management of money and judicious public administration thereof. This entire branch of knowledge is called vaarta. Kautilya’s Arthasaastra [chapter 2] [composed prior to the 4th century BC but discovered in 1909] mentions Aanvikshiki as an all pervasive enquiry in which a lot of prowess was attained, and vaartaa and dandaniti as the two pillars of knowledge. Kautilya refers to artha and anartha, the positive and negative aspects of economy. The Chaarvaaka principle provides earning money by physical and mental hard work and prohibits earning through unproductive strategy such as fees for so-called religious ceremonies like sacrifices, weddings, post-mortem functions like sraaddha, etc. It criticises and rejects the provisions in Manusmriti [4.3] that Braahmanas may earn their livelihood without doing any productive work. While summarising the Chaarvaaka position in Sarvadarsanasangraha Sankara, the main exponent of Advaita Vedaanta stated that chanting hymns and exploiting the faith of the innocent and ignorant people is the way of persons of weak conscience and weak minds, but persons having self-respect undertake farming and other means of creating real property. This was not only a tribute to the good followers of his faith, but a grudging tribute indirectly to the Chaarvaakas.

If Necessary, Borrow and Drink Ghee The Chaarvaaka vaarta was thus an elaborate set up of which borrowing and lending were an essential part. While discussing ways of amassing money and property they have forbidden unjust ways and dishonest dealings. Vaartas must be conducted under Dandaniti or administrative rules and regulations. While accumulating capital for a project they advise taking loans which must obviously be repaid with due interest. This brings us to perhaps the most well-known verse attributed to Brihaspati enunciating a principle that is ironically used by the opponents as a handle to beat them with: Yavajjivet sukham jivet | Rinam kritvaa ghritam pibet || Bhasmibhutasya dehasya | Punaraagamanam kutah || [As long as you live happily, take a loan and drink ghee. After a body is reduced to ashes where will it come back from?]

Critics of the Chaarvaaka school see in this verse an extreme instance of self-centred hedonism. This charge is baseless and this verse is absolved of wicked selfishness and like other Chaarvaaka doctrines suggests a practical way out of a difficulty, here a financial contingency. How we shall now see. Some fundamental facts must be taken into account. This is the seventh verse in a set of eleven in Sarvadarsana Sangraha. These verses criticise the financial benefits earned by Braahmanas in religious functions. Whether the words are Brihaspati’s or not is doubtful, but the sense does agree with the Chaarvaaka line of thinking. About living happily there should be no problem. Borrowing money is again a standard procedure probably since man’s appearance on earth. There is no suggestion in the verse that a loan should not be repaid or that an exorbitant interest should be paid. No arm-twisting suffered by anyone; the borrower gets his slice of the pie and the lender a larger slice at a later date. Lawful pledging of property is resorted to. Regular impersonal rates spare both the need to haggle. Both take the financial transaction in their stride. If there is any distortion in this straight meaning, the opponents, governed by Vedic laws, introduced it in a calculated effort to cause calumny.

The Vedic rules about loans are weighed down in favour of the so-called higher castes. For example, Manusmriti lays down two, three, four and five percent monthly interest from the Braahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra debtors [8.142]. It is cruel to charge the impoverished Sudra the highest rate. In repaying the loan the rule says [8.177] a lower caste borrower may repay it in the form of labour if he is not able to pay it in cash, but a higher caste borrower may repay at his leisure. For sacrifices, a Braahmana priest or host may legally rob a lower caste householder [11.11-15]. The caste-system thus percolates to all areas of social structure to ensure a comfortable pace of life for the higher castes. The Chaarvaaka position is: the caste-system is artificial, unreal, hence unacceptable. Loans are purely financial transactions in which castes cannot interfere.

There is some misunderstanding about drinking ghee too. In aayurveda “ghee is life” [aayurghritam] is a standard quote. Even today ghee is considered a food-purifier. In ancient times the belief was stronger than today. Ghee therefore occupied a central place in food. It was symbolic of good food. Again, in prose one can put in exact words; in verse the structure is restricted. One writes a word but one means a word having a similar sense.

The second line of the verse, viz, “After a body is reduced to ashes where will it come back from?” is stark reality as already discussed.

Public Administration Such neat and prosperous civilisations as Harappa and Mohenjo-daaro must have had a disciplined, benevolent and uncorrupt cadre of public servants. In support of this, there are many references to Brihaspati’s works on laws and governance. An interesting extract from Aaine-Akbari [vol.III, tr. by H. S. Barrett, pp217-218] written by Abul Fazl, the famous historian of Akbar’s court, mentions a symposium of philosophers of all faiths held in 1578 at Akbar’s instance. This sounds credible in the context of Akbar’s restless desire to find truth, reflected in his launching a new religion called Din-e-elaahi. The account under advisement is given by the well-known historian Vincent Smith, in his article titled “The Jain Teachers of Akbar”. Some Chaarvaaka thinkers are said to have participated in the symposium. Under the heading “Naastika” Abul Fazl has referred to the good work, judicious administration and welfare schemes that were emphasised by the Chaarvaaka law-makers. Somadeva has also mentioned the Chaarvaaka method of defeating the enemies of the nation. He has referred to thirteen enemies who remain disguised in the kingdom for their selfish interests. They may contain a few relatives of the king and subsidiary rulers, but they should not be spared. They should be rigorously punished like any other such opponent. Kautilya, as already mentioned, has given a detailed scheme to remove the enemies in the garb of friends. The Chaarvaaka stalwart, Brihaspati, is so much more ancient than Kautilya and Somadeva. He appears to be contemporaneous with the Harappa and Mohenjo-daaro culture.

The central point of traditional religious ritual is to earn ready money for its perpetrators. All unproductive, barren rites designed for various moments in human life starting from several months prior to birth and extending over several years beyond death in the form of the annual sraaddha, many of which are current even today, are but channels to feed the priests. They are unreal, imagined and wasteful. While they are unreal, imagined and wasteful; the feeding is real.

This cunning paradox was realised by the Chaarvaakas for its real worth. They wanted financial causes to produce financial results. Imagined causes only produced imagined results not real ones.

Man-Woman Relationship Many thinkers, writers are male, hence the pronoun ‘he’ is generally used to indicate the entire humanity, with the unwritten proviso that ‘he’ includes ‘she’. Even some women writers follow suit in this matter. Yet, in the English spelling ‘she’ includes ‘he’. She constitutes half the humanity. The Chaarvaaka doctrines of equality and freedom preserve and enhance the dignity of the fair sex. Along with finance they recognised in love another objective of human life discarding religion and salvation as perverse, misleading, a mockery of reality.

Woman’s position in a world controlled by man largely depends on the tendencies of the man she comes in contact with. Nature has burdened her with maternity and she has to be cautious about sex including sexual crimes. This situation obtains even in the culturally advanced countries, which have laws providing equality of the sexes, divorce on proper grounds, monogamy, etc. India too has many such laws; although often sans implementation. The trouble is that socially we lag a lot behind what our laws project and it is the result of our traditions built up through centuries under an anti-woman dispensation. The Chaarvaaka concepts had an uphill task in counteracting the traditional condition of women. The opinions about their attitude to women in other treatises are mostly adverse. In short, free sex was advocated by them, as per some works. But in Sarvadarsanasangraha, the scholar Madhava described the Chaarvaaka school of philosophy as impossible to defeat in the battle of wits.

On the contrary, the sacrifices ordained by the Vedic religion contain certain obscene rituals [in asvamedha, gosava and others already referred to] and it was Brihaspati [according to Padmapuraana, 5.13.331, 332] who questioned the claim of the sacrifices, asking how copulation and other unspeakable rites can reserve for the host a place in heaven.

Husband not only Lord and Master, but God It is our misguided cultural tradition to elevate the husband to the place of the wife’s god. Even today in films and plays the wife bends and touches the husband’s feet and he is freely called her god. Rituals like Karvaa Chauth and Vatasaavitri are performed by even educated wives for the husband’s longevity and for his continued husbandship for seven incarnations. Remarriages of widows or divorced women are rare. The century-old cruel burning of a live widow on her dead husband’s funeral pyre was declared unlawful and punishable by the British governor-general. Yet we know that the custom has surfaced recently in the sati incident in Raajasthan. A similar event is shown in the television serial Farz on November 10, 2001. The birth of a girl even today means a great misfortune and dowry deaths are not uncommon.

Specific instances of illustrious women suffering at the hands of men are legend in India’s ancient history. As referred to earlier, Renukaa, the wife vof Jamadagni, was accused of infidelity only because she spared glances at passing gandharvas, a species of humans, and on his order his son, Parasuraam, removed her head from her body so as to kill her. The son obeyed the father. Raama banished his wife Sitaa after rescuing her from the abductor, Raavana. He accepted her after the fire-god’s assurance of her purity, but again expelled her to the uninhabited forest where she would have been killed but for Vaalmiki’s protection. God Indra under the guise of Gautama commited adultery with Gautama’s wife, Ahilya. When Gautama cursed him to become a perforated body, he got it repaired, but the wife cursed to be a stone remained in the stone-form for centuries. These incidents are not even today looked down upon as an affront to woman’s prestige, but are glorified and devotional songs on the themes are composed and admired. Rape and other sexual crimes are unknown among animals. They do not usually kill unless provoked or for food. Men involved in such crimes show the lowest level humanity can sink. In the last century and the beginning of this, girls were married whilst in cradle in any case before coming of age. There was a law against this which was opposed by many stalwarts but ultimately the custom seems to be dying out, freeing women from the shackles of early marriage.

The Chaarvaakas have denounced these vile customs. In Naishadhiya [17.42] a character named Chaarvaaka says, “Fie upon the men who restrict women out of jealousy. Men and women both have passion, but their restrictions are directed towards women only; men are not subject to any restrictions.” Scores of such extracts can be addressed.

In this way the Chaarvaaka attitude to women and their relations with men is fully consistent with their position in other matters. The Chaarvaaka thought has thus been summarised in this short treatise. The Chaarvaakas made our India proud at the dawn of civilisation. Today most people in their actions and intentions follow the Chaarvaaka way of enjoying life through hard, honest work. Many of them pay lip service to god or a spiritual entity as a formality. Some of them nevertheless abuse ‘spiritual’ platform by amassing wealth at its cost. Many leaders lead a perverse life keeping common people’s vagaries intact, often visiting temples and waxing eloquent on spiritual inclinations. How many crooks are harboured by temples, mosques and other religious establishments we do not know. Their lips serve morality but hands, feet, intentions work toward selfish ends.