Editing Carvaka School of Thought in Indian Philosophy (section)

==== '''Rejection of the Authority of Vedas''' ====
According to the Carvakas the Vedas are tainted by the three faults of untruth, self-contradictions and tautology (needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word), then again the imposters who call themselves Vedic pandits are mutually destructive, as the authority of the jnana-kanda is overthrown by those who maintain that of karma-kanda, while those who maintain the authority of the jnana-kanda reject that of the karma-kanda; and lastly, the three Vedas are themselves are only the incoherent rhapsodies of knaves, and to this effect runs the popular saying-

“The Agnihotra, the three Vedas, the ascetics’ three staves, and smearing oneself with ashes” (''Review of the Different Systems of Hindu Philosophy'', 1882, 9).

Having rejected the authority of the Vedas and texts, the concepts of virtue and vice, and belief in life after death, the Carvakas are naturally hostile to religious ceremonies performed with the goal of achieving paradise, avoiding hell, or propitiating departed spirits. If the priests truly believe, as they claim, that animals sacrificed are guaranteed to enter paradise, why don't they sacrifice their elderly parents instead of animals, ensuring their place in heaven?

That the Lokayatikas were opposed to the Brahmanical rituals does not necessarily mean that they were opposed to rituals as such; the conflict could have been because they wanted to stick to their own rituals and these rituals were rooted in a set of beliefs with which orthodox Vedic authority was in direct conflict. At the same time, Loakayata were essentially materialistic in the sense of acknowledging the reality of nothing but the material human body and the material universe around us. If therefore, the Lokayatikas or Carvakas had at all practised any rituals, such rituals could have little to do with otherworldliness (Chattopadhyaya, 1959, 36-37)<sup>3</sup>.