Jiva

MIND, MATTER AND GOD : JIVA, JADA AND ISVARA
M.M.NINAN
The wise should enjoy the pleasures of this world through the more appropriate
available means of agriculture, tending cattle, trade, political administration, etc.”
(Quoted by Advaita Vedanta theologian Sayana Madhava in 'Sarvadarsanasamgraha',
14th century AD),
Sarva siddhanta samgraha gives a list of Lokayitika doctrine as follows:
1. Only the perceived exists. The unperceivable does not exist.
2. A person is happy or miserable through nature; there is no other cause.
3 . There is no world other than those that are perceivable; there is no heaven and hell;
the realm of Shiva and like regions are invented by stupid impostors of other schools of
thought.
4. The enjoyment of heaven lies in eating delicious food, keeping company of young
women, using fine clothes, perfumes, garlands, sandal paste, etc.
5. The pain of hell lies in the troubles that arise from enemies’ weapons, diseases; the
ultimate liberation is death which is the cessation of life-breath.
6. The wise should enjoy the pleasures of this world through the proper visible means of
agriculture, keeping cattle, trade, political administration, etc.
(http://www.angelfire.com/ct3/logic/300midterm/carvaka.htm)
A second teacher, Ajita Kesambala, represented the following view: "There is no gift in
charity, there is no sacrifice, and there are no offerings. There is no fruit and ripening of
good and bad actions. There is not this world or that. There is neither mother nor father.
There are no suddenly-born beings. In the world, there are no ascetics and Brahmanas
who have gone along the right path of conduct and follow the right conduct, which have
seen this world and that world out of independent knowledge and proclaimed it. A man
consists of four Elements. When he dies, earth goes into the mass of earth
(prithivikayah), water into the mass of water, fire into the mass of fire, breath into the
mass of air, and the sense-organs enter into space (akasah). Four men, with the bier as
the fifth, carry forth the dead person, and they carry on their talk until they come into the
place of cremation. Then there remain only white bones and all sacrifices end in ashes.
The gift of charity is, therefore, the doctrine of a buffoon; it is empty and false talk when
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