Charvaka, also known as Lokayata, arose in ancient India during a period of intense philosophical ferment, likely between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE. It emerged alongside other heterodox, or nāstika, currents that questioned the authority of the Vedas and the ritualism of the Brahmanical tradition. Rather than springing fully formed from a single author or text, it appears to have crystallized out of ongoing debates, oral teachings, and the reflections of early thinkers who were deeply skeptical of metaphysical and supernatural claims. This milieu included the broader śramaṇa culture, which also gave rise to Buddhism and Jainism, and within which Charvaka took shape as a distinctly materialist and empiricist voice.

Tradition associates the origin of this school with a sage named Bṛhaspati, to whom a foundational work called the Bṛhaspati Sūtra is attributed. However, this text has been lost, and the figure of Bṛhaspati is often regarded as more symbolic than strictly historical, a way of personifying a current of thought rather than documenting a single founder. What is known of Charvaka comes primarily from the writings of its opponents—Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain authors—who preserved its doctrines in the very act of refuting them. These sources portray Charvaka as a deliberate challenger of religious authority, rejecting the Vedas, the afterlife, karma, and any means of knowledge other than direct perception.

From this vantage point, the origin of Charvaka can be seen less as a single event and more as the gradual articulation of a radical stance within the shared intellectual space of ancient India. It arose as a systematic refusal to accept unseen worlds, ritual efficacy, or transcendent realities, insisting instead that only what is directly perceived can be trusted. In doing so, it set itself against both orthodox Vedic schools and other emerging systems, carving out a contrarian path that foregrounded material existence and skeptical inquiry. The school’s beginnings thus lie at the crossroads of critique and dialogue, where questioning the sacred order opened the door to a rigorously this-worldly philosophy.