Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c12.s1.2

c12.s1.2

The simplest, and most hopeless from the Buddhist point of view, was presumably the creed of Ajita of the garment of hair (kesakambalin). It was a pure materialism; man is built up of the four elements, which at death are resolved into their native earth, water, fire, and air, while the senses, conceived apparently as in the classical form of the Cārvāka doctrine as the product of the commixture of the elements, pass into space, whose existence is also accepted. Hence, there is no true birth, whether from father and mother or fortuitous; there is no fruit of gift or sacrifice in this world or the next; wisdom avails not to prevent annihilation in the grave. An essentially similar doctrine doubtless that of the Lokāyatas, who held that the soul was identical with the body, in the sense that it died with it, a doctrine evidently very popular in early India and persisting later, for the Arthaśāstra ranks the system with Sāṃkhya and Yoga as prevalent doctrines.¹