Cārvāka (चार्वाक)
Executive summary
Cārvāka (चार्वाक), also called Lokāyata (लोकायत), is a nāstika (नास्तिक) school. No root book is in hand. What this page says is what the reports agree in describing, not a sūtra (सूत्र) invented to fill the gap. Perception is the means of knowing. Inference that jumps past what is seen, and the word of the Veda, are refused. What exists is the four elements. The self the other schools argue about is the living body. The good that can be sought is pleasure in this life, with the pain mixed into it kept in view.
नेपालीमा
चार्वाक, जसलाई लोकायत पनि भनिन्छ, नास्तिक दर्शन हो। मूल पुस्तक हातमा छैन। यो पृष्ठले भन्ने कुरा रिपोर्टहरूले मिलेर बताएको कुरा हो, खाली ठाउँ भर्न रचिएको सूत्र होइन। जान्ने साधन प्रत्यक्ष हो। देखेकोभन्दा पर उफ्रने अनुमान र वेदको शब्द अस्वीकार हुन्छन्। जे छ त्यो चार तत्त्व हो। अरू दर्शनले विवाद गर्ने आत्मा जीवित शरीर हो। खोज्न सकिने राम्रो कुरा यही जीवनको सुख हो, त्यसमा मिसिएको दुःखलाई ध्यानमा राखेर।
Cārvāka (चार्वाक) is a nāstika (नास्तिक) school. The Veda is not a pramāṇa (प्रमाण). The school is also called Lokāyata (लोकायत), what is spread among people, the this-world teaching.
No root book is in hand. A Bṛhaspati-sūtra (बृहस्पति-सूत्र) is named by other schools, and the lines they quote are fragments inside those other books. Mādhava (माधव)'s Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha (सर्वदर्शनसंग्रह) has a chapter that speaks in a Cārvāka (चार्वाक) voice. That chapter is a fourteenth-century report. It is not the school's own sūtra (सूत्र), so it is not sat here line by line. This page is the school as the reports agree in describing it.
The means of knowing is pratyakṣa (प्रत्यक्ष), perception. Anumāna (अनुमान), inference that jumps past what is seen, and śabda (शब्द), the word of the Veda, are refused as means of knowing. A cause you have seen at work can be used for what is in front of you. A cause you have not seen, used to prove an ātman (आत्मन्) or a fruit after death, does not count.
What exists is the four elements: pṛthivī (पृथिवी), earth, āpas (आप), water, tejas (तेज), fire, and vāyu (वायु), air. The self the other schools argue about is the deha (देह), the body, living, while the elements are combined in this way. When the body breaks up, that ends. There is no karma (कर्म) that crosses into another birth, and no rite that buys a fruit there.
The good that can be sought is pleasure in this life, kāma (काम), with the duḥkha (दुःख) that comes mixed with it kept in view. Dharma (धर्म) as a Vedic command, and mokṣa (मोक्ष) as a release after death, are off this list.
The other pages in this book are the arguments this school refuses. Nyāya (न्याय)'s inference, Mīmāṃsā (मीमांसा)'s injunction, Vedānta (वेदान्त)'s Brahman (ब्रह्मन्), the Jain path, and the Buddhist account of rebirth are all, from here, claims that go past perception. Read those books in their own words. The refusal belongs to this page.