Within the Charvaka system, materialism is not a peripheral idea but the very backbone of its worldview. Reality is held to consist solely of matter, specifically the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air, and nothing beyond these is granted ontological status. On this basis, all non-material entities—such as a separate soul, gods, karma, heaven, hell, or liberation—are denied any real existence. Consciousness itself is understood as an emergent property of the material elements in combination, comparable to how intoxication arises from fermented grain. The “self” is therefore identified with the living body rather than with an independent, immortal essence.

This materialist stance also shapes Charvaka epistemology, the way knowledge is understood and justified. Only direct perception is regarded as a reliable means of knowing, because it alone discloses material objects to the senses. Inference and scriptural testimony may be tolerated at most in a limited, practical sense, but they are rejected as trustworthy guides whenever they point toward unseen, non-material realities. Claims about supernatural realms or invisible moral forces are thus treated as speculative and unfounded, lacking the grounding that perception alone can provide.

From this foundation flows a distinctive ethical and practical orientation. Since there is no afterlife, no rebirth, and no cosmic moral law operating beyond the material world, the focus turns to maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain in this present life. Religious rituals, ascetic practices, and priestly prescriptions are dismissed as wasteful or misleading, because they rest on beliefs about non-material entities that cannot be verified. Materialism therefore functions both as Charvaka’s metaphysical core and as its practical guide, underwriting a thoroughgoing skepticism toward the supernatural and a frank embrace of worldly enjoyment as the only meaningful human goal.