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The Carvaka is a non‐Vedic, materialistic, and anti‐supernaturalistic doctrine which holds that only
this world exists and there is nothing beyond. There is no future life. Madhava Acharya says in
Sarvadarsanasangrgha, "The efforts of Carvaka are indeed hard to be eradicated, for the majority
of living beings hold by the 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 e'er again return?" [36]
"The mass of men, in accordance with the Sastras of policy and enjoyment are found to follow
only the doctrine of Carvaka. Hence another name for that school is Lokayata ‐ a name well
accordant with the thing signified." [37]
The four elements alone are the ultimate principles and these are earth, water, fire, and air. Only
the perceived exists; the unperceivable does not exist, simply for the reason of its never having
been perceived. The only source of knowledge and the criterion of validity is perception. Every
other source including that of inference is rejected. Inferential knowledge involves inductive
relations and can never be demonstrably certain. Empirical generalizations may possess a high
degree of probability, but their operation in unknown cases can never be guaranteed. To avoid
this difficulty, if it is maintained that the empirical laws connect the common features of the
particular instances observed by a person, the Carvaka objects to it by saying that such a course
would leave the particulars unrelated and that it is the particulars alone which matter.
As against the Upanisads which postulated five elements, the Carvaka admits of only four
discarding the fifth one, viz., space. The whole universe including souls is interpreted strictly in
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