(a) Differentiate between the Cārvākas' refutation of self as a transcendental category and the Buddhist rejection of ātmā. 20…

(a) Cārvāka and Buddhist rejections of the self

The Cārvākas, in the Bṛhaspati/Barhaspatya tradition, reject ātmā as a transcendental category because it is not perceivable. For them pratyakṣa is the only valid means of knowledge, and what is called self is the living body (deha). Hence dehātmavāda: the body is the self, and consciousness is an emergent product of the four bhūtas in the right combination, as intoxicating power (madaśakti) arises when fermenting ingredients combine. Ordinary usage such as 'I am fat' or 'I am lean' shows that 'I' refers to the body. There is no unperceivable soul, no afterlife, and no transmigrating entity. Cārvāka does not deny the experience of self; it locates it in the body and denies any eternal, independent self beyond it. Buddhism also denies ātmā, but not by reducing self to matter. Through pratītyasamutpāda and anitya, it denies a permanent, independent self; the person is only a conventional designation over the five skandhas, as a 'chariot' is a name for its assembled parts (Milindapañha). The Buddha's Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta argues that each skandha is impermanent, painful and not under control, and so is not the self; the body too is not the self. Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā argues that a self cannot be found in the skandhas nor apart from them. Yet Buddhism accepts rebirth as causal continuity without a transmigrating soul, unlike Cārvāka materialism. Thus Cārvāka rejects the self epistemically as unverifiable and identifies it with body; Buddhism rejects it ontologically as empty of svabhāva while retaining a dependently arisen, conventional person. The contrast is not merely verbal: Cārvāka’s self is perishable and material, while the Buddhist conventional self is a process of skandhas, and the Buddhist rejection leaves room for karma and liberation.

(b) Mādhyamika and Sarvāstivāda

From the same pratītyasamutpāda, Mādhyamika and Sarvāstivāda draw opposite conclusions. Nāgārjuna argues that if things are dependently originated, they cannot possess svabhāva; dependence proves emptiness. His formula (MMK 24.18) that śūnyatā is pratītyasamutpāda shows that “everything is void” is not a separate metaphysical void but the very mode of arising: all dharmas, and even dependent origination itself, lack intrinsic existence. Sarvāstivāda/Vaibhāṣika, by contrast, reads dependence as real causal efficacy. For past karma, memory and continuity to work, past dharmas must exist; otherwise a non-existent cause cannot produce a present effect. Their arguments (summarised in Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa) are from scripture, which speaks of past and future form; from cognition, which always needs an existent object, including past and future objects; and from karma, since a past act must exist to bear fruit. This leads to sarvam asti: all dharmas in past, present and future are real, though conditioned. The same doctrine is read as refutation of svabhāva by Mādhyamika and as proof of real dharmas by Sarvāstivāda. Thus the divergence is interpretive: Mādhyamika takes dependence as the negation of inherent existence, while Sarvāstivāda takes it as the operation of real dharmas across time. Yogācāra (Asaṅga/Vasubandhu) is not the source of “everything is real”; its vijñapti-mātratā denies external objects and treats vijñāna as the basis of appearance, so it holds that consciousness alone is real, not that everything is real.

(c) Bhāvabandha and dravyabandha in Jainism

Jaina bandha has two aspects. Dravyabandha is the ontological attachment of karmic matter (pudgala) to the soul-substance (jīva-dravya); karmic particles actually cling to the soul and limit its infinite knowledge, bliss and power. Bhāvabandha is the bondage of the soul’s states or modes (bhāvas) produced by delusion, passions and activity; it is the psychological-spiritual conditioning that draws karma in. Umāsvāti's Tattvārtha Sūtra lists five causes of bondage: wrong belief (mithyādarśana), non-abstinence (avirati), carelessness (pramāda), passions (kaṣāya) and activity (yoga) (8.1). It defines bandha as the soul, owing to passions, taking in matter fit to become karma (8.2). Bondage has four aspects: nature (prakṛti), duration (sthiti), intensity (anubhāga) and quantity (pradeśa). In Jain terms, dravya is the substratum, bhāva its modification; bandha is both the attachment of karma-dravya and the soul’s bound bhāva. The distinction is therefore between substance-level entanglement and mode-level conditioning: dravyabandha is karma as real pudgala attached to jīva-dravya, while bhāvabandha is the soul’s deluded, passion-bound state that sustains the influx. Liberation requires both samvara, stopping new influx, and nirjarā, shedding existing karma, so that both material and modal bondage cease and the soul’s infinite qualities are unobstructed.