Materialism in the Śāstravārtasamuccaya of Haribhadra Sūri

Direct sources for the study of classical Indian materialism (Lokāyata or Cārvāka) are extremely rare. We know that a basic text advocating materialism existed, the Bṛhaspatisūtra or Bārhaspatyasūtra of which only a few fragments remain. Indirect sources, however, are more numerous. We find them mainly in doxographies of Brahmanical, Buddhist or Jain origin. One of the most important of these is the Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya of the Jain author Haribhadra Sūri (8th C.E.) and its commentary, the Tarkarahasyadīpikā of Guṇaratna (Suali 1905). However, conspicuous in the list of indirect sources is the absence of the Śāstravārtasamuccaya composed by the same Jain author. This remarkable text has not yet been studied adequately. The Hindi translation of K.K. Dixit (1969, 2002) is only a paraphrase or, at the least, a free translation. This article presents an English translation of the basic text of Haribhadra Sūri along with the paraphrase (P) mentioned as well as the Ṭippaṇī (Ṭ) or gloss, both by Dixit. It is meant to be a preliminary study of a so far neglected source and to provide additional primary materials for the study of Indian materialism.

 

Frank Van Den Bossche , Ghent University , Department of Oriental Languages and Cultures, Blandijnberg 2 , 9000 Ghent , Belgium

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