1862.] 
The Charvaka System of Philosophy. 
371 
The Charvaka System of Philosophy.—Py E. B. Cowell, M. A. 
Colebrooke (Essays, Vol. I. p. 402) states that “for want of an 
opportunity of consulting* an original treatise on this branch of 
philosophy or any connected summary furnished even by an adver¬ 
sary of opinions professed by the Charvakas,” he was unable to give 
any sufficient account of their peculiar doctrine further than that it 
is undisguised materialism. The system is continually alluded to in 
different philosophical treatises, but it is only by the recent publica¬ 
tion, in our Society’s Bibliotheca, of Madliavacharya’s Sarva-dars^na- 
sangraha, that the want which Colebrooke regretted has in any way 
been supplied. Among the fourteen systems there analysed, that of 
the Charvakas holds the first place ; it being entitled to that priority 
in consequence of its being the most degraded of all,—the next places 
to it being successively occupied by those of the Bauddhas and the 
Jainas. 
A translation of this chapter appeared in the fourteenth Yol. of the 
Zeitschrift der Morgenlandischen Gfesellschaft, but unfortunately it 
abounds with errors of every description, that it can convey no proper 
idea of the original. In fact one might almost doubt whether such a 
book as the Sarvadars'ana-sangraha could be properly translated in 
Europe. Even here it is difficult to understand it in the absence of any 
commentary, even with all the assistance at one’s command of pandits 
thoroughly versed in the ancient philosophies of their ancestors; and 
there are many parts of the volume, which the most learned pandits 
of Bengal confess their inability to explain.* 
The doctrines of the Charvakas are frequently confounded with 
those of the Bauddhas and Jainas, but Madhava’s summary, as well 
as still more authentic notices from the sects themselves, proves 
that this is erroneous. Charvaka is sometimes taken as the name 
of a leader of the sect, and sometimes as a generic title,—in the 
Mahabharata mention is made of a rakshasa of that name, who en¬ 
deavours by a false report of Bhima’s death to ruin the Papdavas in 
the moment of their final triumph. Most accounts, however, ascribe 
the founding of the sect to Brihaspati. We might have more natur- 
* The present chapter is one of the easiest in the work, but there are several 
passages in it which 1 could not have translated, but for the aid of Pandit Mohesh 
Chandra Njayaratna. 
3 C 
