The ''Bārhaspatya sūtras'' (derived from the name of the author Brhaspati), or ''Lokāyata sutras'' are the foundational texts of the '' nastika''

Charvaka Charvaka ( sa, चार्वाक; IAST: ''Cārvāka''), also known as ''Lokāyata'', is an ancient school of Indian materialism. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge, embra ...

school of materialist philosophy. This text has been lost, and is known only from fragmentary quotations. Dakshinaranjan Shastri in 1928 published 60 such verses. In 1959, he published 54 selected verses as ''Barhaspatya

sutram The dictionary gives the meaning of the Sanskrit or Tamil expression, Sutram (सूत्रम्) or Sutra (सूत्र), as string or thread, formula, short sentence or aphoristic rule, girdle, stroke, yarn or plan. Unique to Sanskrit lite ...

''. Shastri was of the opinion that many more fragments could be recovered.

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Ramkrishna Bhattacharya was an academic author and exponent of an ancient school of Indian materialism called Carvaka/Lokayata. He authored 27 books and more than 175 research papers on Indian and European literature, textual criticism (Bangla ...

(2002) attempts a new reconstruction, with the caveat that the more verses are listed, the greater the uncertainty that it will be either misquoted or foreign materials included as a part of the text. Most of the fragments are found in works dated to the Indian Middle Ages, roughly between the 8th and 12th centuries. The extensive 14th century treatise on

Indian philosophy Indian philosophy refers to philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A traditional Hindu classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Veda ...

by Madhava Vidyaranya, the ''Sarvadarshanasamgraha'', gives a detailed account of Charvaka, but it doesn't quote Charvaka texts directly, instead paraphrasing the doctrine according to the understanding of a learned 14th century Vedantin. Bhattacharya lists 68 items on 9 pages.

References

* Dakshinaranjan Shastri, ''Charvaka Philosophy'', Purogami Prakashani (1967) * R. Bhattacharya,
Carvaka Fragments: A New Collection
, ''Journal of Indian Philosophy'', Volume 30, Number 6, December 2002, pp. 597-640. Sanskrit texts Indian philosophy {{Indian Philosophy

See also

References