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Vol. XXXVII
No. 3 January
HEMACANDRA ON THE CARVĀKA: A STUDY
RAMKRISHNA BHATTACHARYA
Hemacandra (1088-1172 CE) respectfully called kalikalasarvajña (the omniscient one of the Kali era) was not the first Jain author to write about the Cārvāka/Lokāyata. Long before him Haribhadra (eighth century CE) had dealt with this system of philosophy in his Saddarśana-samuccaya (SDSam), Sāstravārtāsamuccaya and Lokatattvanirnaya. So had Siddharși in his Upamiiibhava-prapanca -katha (CE 906). However, some passages in Hemacandra's works contain something of special interest in connection with the Carvāka.
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A passage in the Abhidhana-cintāmaṇi (AC) runs as follows: syadvādavadya "rhataḥ syat sunyavādī tu saugataḥ | naiyāyikastvākṣapādo yaugaḥ sāmkhyastu kāpilaḥ | vaiseṣikaḥ syādaulukyo bārhaspatyastu nāstikaḥ II cārvāko laukāyatikaścaite şaḍapi tarkikaḥ / Hemacandra mentions six systems of philosophy: 1.Syādvādavādin or Arhata (i.e. the Jain), 2. Sūnyavādin or Saugata (i.e. the Buddhist), 3. Naiyāyika or Ākṣpāda or Yauga,2 4. Sāmkhya or Kāpila, 5. Vaiśeṣika or Aulukya, and 6. Bārhaspatya or Nastika or Cārvāka or Laukāyatika.3
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Why Hemacandra excludes Mīmāņisā, Vedānta and Yoga is rather puzzling. Haribhadra in his ȘDSam begins with a short exposition of the Buddhist system and proceeds to deal with Nyaya, Samkhya, Jain, Vaiseṣika, Mīmāmsā and Cārvāka. He too excludes Vedanta. But his inclusion of the Carvaka seems to have been an afterthought. Having concluded the section on the doctrine of Jaimini (i.e. Mīmāmsā), Haribhadra suddenly remembers that some scholars preferred to treat Nyāya and Vaiseṣika as a single system and, according to them, the number of the astikavādin-s are five, not six (v. 78). So in order to maintain the magic number, six, he decided to fill in the gap with the Carvaka (v. 79). Apparently, by the term, āstikavādin (affirmativist), Haribhadra means those systems of philosophy which believe in the existence of the other world (paraloka). Hence he
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