I started writing on the Cārvāka, the most uncompromising materialist school of philosophy in ancient India, from 1995 and have continued to work on its different aspects. My researches on this subject are now being offered in a revised and enlarged form, thanks to the interest shown by Dr Federico Squarcini, Florence University.

Each chapter is meant to be read separately, hence some repetitions have been retained. In some cases, references have been made to other chapters. This makes every chapter self-complete and, at the same time, helps readers follow my line of argument.

Admittedly, there is paucity of material relating to the Cārvāka. Still, as in the case of the Presocratic philosophers of Greece, it is possible to reconstruct the basic tenets of this system on the basis of whatever little is found in the works of its opponents and the extracts quoted by them. Notwithstanding distortions, the Cārvāka/Lokāyata has emerged as the lone contender against the pro-Vedic Brahminical schools on the one hand, and the non-Vedic Buddhist and Jain schools on the other. Besides the orthodoxy prevailing around the Vedas, belief in after-life and after-world has been the bone of contention. This will be evident from the way I have arranged the Cārvāka fragments in Chapter 6.

My endeavour has been to disprove certain notions about the Cārvāka/Lokāyata—two of which are generally admitted as being beyond doubt.