Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata aphorism: ‘from these, consciousness’ (tebhyaś caitanyam)

Abstract

Once flourishing in the early medieval India, the materialist Carvaka/Lokayata tradition of philosophy vanished centuries ago leaving mere bits from their foundational sutra, and from a few commentaries thereon. These are scattered in the works of their opponents, hence the winding path to reconstructing the Carvaka/Lokayata thought necessarily begins with evaluating the reliability of the source material. This paper deals with the problem of the brief account of two interpretations of the Carvaka/Lokayata aphorism: 'from these, consciousness', recorded by the 8th-century Buddhist authors Śantarak�ita and Kamalaśfla in the Lokâyata-parfk$a Chapter XXII of the Tattva-sańgraha(-pañjika), critically edited by the author of the present paper.