The Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha

“While life is yours, live joyously”: the Charvaka philosopher’s blunt refrain turns the question of what happens after death into a challenge to anyone who believes in a soul beyond the body.

Written in 14th-century India, Madhava’s review leads readers through a range of philosophical systems, beginning with a school that trusts the senses and rejects a world beyond this one. For the Charvakas, intelligence is born from the body as intoxication from a mixture of ingredients; pleasure is worth pursuing, even when it comes with pain. Their argument puts every rival claim—about inference, scripture, and liberation—on trial. If the only life we can know is this one, what could prove otherwise?

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