Editing Carvaka School of Thought in Indian Philosophy (section)

==== '''The World is Made of Four Elements''' ====
Common Hindu thought recognizes five elements which compose the material world - earth, water, fire, air and akasa. While the first four of these are matters of ordinary sense experience, the last is the result of inference. The Carvaka, because he admits only the immediate evidence of the senses, denies the last (Hiriyanna, 1993, 191)<sup>7</sup>. The four perceptible elements are thus believed to make up the material world. All things, including the mind, are a result of a particular arrangement of these four elements. Although the components are eternal, their combinations can be created and destroyed. It is believed that consciousness is merely a byproduct of matter.  It is created when the components come together in a specific ratio. It is found always associated with the body and vanishes when the body disintegrates. The universe is accepted as uncreated, composed of matter but of which all that exists is produced.