[5] Dr. A. C. Burnell, in his preface to his edition of the Vaṃśa-Bráhmaṇa, has solved the riddle of the relation of Mádhava and Sáyaṇa. Sáyaṇa is a pure Draviḍian name given to a child who is born after all the elder children have died. Mádhava elsewhere calls Sáyaṇa his "younger brother," as an allegorical description of his body, himself being the eternal soul. His use of the term Sáyaṇa-Mádhavaḥ here (not the dual) seems to prove that the two names represent the same person. The body seems meant by the Sáyaṇa of the third śloka. Máyaṇa was the father of Mádhava, and the true reading may be śríman-máyaṇa.
CHAPTER I.
THE CHÁRVÁKA SYSTEM.
[We have said in our preliminary invocation "salutation to Śiva, the abode of eternal knowledge, the storehouse of supreme felicity,">[ but how can we attribute to the Divine Being the giving of supreme felicity, when such a notion has been utterly abolished by Chárváka, the crest-gem of the atheistical school, the follower of the doctrine of Bṛihaspati? The efforts of Chárváka are indeed hard to be eradicated, for the majority of living beings hold by the current 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?
The mass of men, in accordance with the Śástras of policy and enjoyment, considering wealth and desire the only ends of man, and denying the existence of any object belonging to a future world, are found to follow only the doctrine of Chárváka. Hence another name for that school is Lokáyata,—a name well accordant with the thing signified.[6]
In this school the four elements, earth, &c., are the original principles; from these alone, when transformed into the body, intelligence is produced, just as the inebriating power is developed from the mixing of certain ingredients;[7] and when these are destroyed, intelligence at once perishes also. They quote the Śruti for this [Bṛihad Áraṇy. Up. ii. 4, 12], "Springing forth from these elements, itself solid knowledge, it is destroyed when they are destroyed,—after death no intelligence remains."[8] Therefore the soul is only the body distinguished by the attribute of intelligence, since there is no evidence for any soul distinct from the body, as such cannot be proved, since this school holds that perception is the only source of knowledge and does not allow inference, &c.
The only end of man is enjoyment produced by sensual pleasures. Nor may you say that such cannot be called the end of man as they are always mixed with some kind of pain, because it is our wisdom to enjoy the pure pleasure as far as we can, and to avoid the pain which inevitably accompanies it; just as the man who desires fish takes the fish with their scales and bones, and having taken as many as he wants, desists; or just as the man who desires rice, takes the rice, straw and all, and having taken as much as he wants, desists. It is not therefore for us, through a fear of pain, to reject the pleasure which our nature instinctively recognises as congenial. Men do not refrain from sowing rice, because forsooth there are wild animals to devour it; nor do they refuse to set the cooking-pots on the fire, because forsooth there are beggars to pester us for a share of the contents. If any one were so timid as to forsake a visible pleasure, he would indeed be foolish like a beast, as has been said by the poet—