ody but that it also was destroyed with
the destruction of the body. The original work of the Carvakas
was written in sutras probably by B@rhaspati. Jayanta and Gu@naratna
quote two sutras from it. Short accounts of this school may be
found in Jayanta's _Nyayamanjari_, Madhava's _Sarvadars'anasa@mgraha_
and Gu@naratna's _Tarkarahasyadipika_. _Mahabharata_ gives
an account of a man called Carvaka meeting Yudhi@s@thira.

Side by side with the doctrine of the Carvaka materialists we
are reminded of the Ajivakas of which Makkhali Gosala, probably
a renegade disciple of the Jain saint Mahavira and a contemporary
of Buddha and Mahavira, was the leader. This was a thorough-going
determinism denying the free will of man and his moral
responsibility for any so-called good or evil. The essence of
Makkhali's system is this, that "there is no cause, either proximate
or remote, for the depravity of beings or for their purity. They

80

become so without any cause. Nothing depends either on one's
own efforts or on the efforts of others, in short nothing depends
on any human effort, for there is no such thing as power or energy,
or human exertion. The varying conditions at any time are due
to fate, to their environment and their own nature [Footnote ref 1]."

Another sophistical school led by Ajita Kesakambali taught
that there was no fruit or result of good or evil deeds; there is no
other world, nor was this one real; nor had parents nor any
former lives any efficacy with respect to this life. Nothing that
we can do prevents any of us alike from being wholly brought to
an end at death [Footnote ref 2].

There were thus at least three currents of thought: firstly the
sacrificial Karma by the force of the magical rites of which any
person could attain anything he desired; secondly the Upani@sad
teaching that the Brahman, the self, is the ultimate reality and
being, and all else but name and form which pass away but do
not abide. That which permanently abides without change is the
real and true, and this is self. Thirdly the nihilistic conceptions
that there is no law, no abiding reality, that everything comes
into being by a fortuitous concourse of circumstances or by some
unknown fate. In each of these schools, philosophy had probably
come to a deadlock. There were the Yoga practices prevalent in
the country and these were accepted partly on the strength of
traditional custom among certain sections, and partly by virtue
of th