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8. AGE OF REASON
"Among the books that have been lost is the entire literature of materialism ...much of the literature of materialism in India was destroyed by the priests an other believers in the orthodox religion during subsequent periods." Nehru, The Discovery of India
Madhava Acharya wrote an extensive review of the Charvaka system in the 14th century A.D. in the Sarvadarshanasamghraha in an attempt to refute it. We get most of our information about Carvaka
from his work.
"...but how can we attribute to the Divine Being the giving of supreme felicity, when such a notion has been utterly abolished by Charvaka, the crest-gem of the atheistic school, the follower of the doctrine of Brihaspati? The efforts of Charvaka are indeed hard to be eradicated, for the majority of living beings hold by the current refrain: While life is yours, live joyously; None can escape Death's searching eye: When once this frame of ours they burn, How shall it ever again return?"
"The Agnihotra, the three Vedas, the ascetic's three staves, and smearing oneself with ashes - Brihaspati says, these are but means of livelihood for those who have no manliness nor sense.
"In this school there are four elements, earth, water, fire and air; and from these four elements alone is intelligence produced – just like the intoxicating power from kinwa &c, mixed together; since in "I am fat", "I am lean", these attributes abide in the same subject, and since fatness, &c, reside only in the body, it alone is the soul and no other, and such phrases as "my body" are only significant metaphorically.
"If a beast slain in the Jyothishtoma rite will itself go to heaven, why then does not the sacrificer forthwith offer his own father?
"If the Sraddha produces gratification to beings who are dead, then why not give food down below to those who are standing on the house-top?
"If he who departs from the body goes to another world, how is it that he come not back again, restless for love of his kindred?
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