The teachings associated with Cārvāka or Lokāyata are known almost entirely through the words of their opponents, for no independent Cārvāka treatise survives. Later tradition speaks of a foundational Bṛhaspati Sūtra, attributed to Bṛhaspati as the putative source of the school’s doctrines, but this work is lost and only verses and allusions preserved in other systems’ texts remain. What passes for “primary” material is therefore a patchwork of quotations, paraphrases, and characterizations embedded in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain works that set out to refute materialist views. Any engagement with Cārvāka thought must therefore proceed with a certain humility, recognizing that the surviving record is filtered through polemical lenses.

Among Brahmanical sources, the most substantial account appears in Mādhava’s *Sarva-darśana-saṅgraha*, which opens with a chapter on Lokāyata/Cārvāka and preserves several well-known verses that present a frankly this-worldly, often hedonistic outlook. Nyāya authors such as Vātsyāyana in the *Nyāya-bhāṣya*, Jayanta Bhaṭṭa in the *Nyāyamañjarī*, and Udayana in works like the *Ātmatattvaviveka* discuss and criticize Cārvāka positions on knowledge, the self, and the afterlife, thereby giving indirect access to their doctrines. Other Brahmanical traditions—Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta, and Dharmaśāstra—occasionally refer to materialist or nāstika views identified with Lokāyata, and these scattered remarks help flesh out the picture, even if always in a disputational context.

Buddhist and Jain authors also play a crucial role in preserving traces of Cārvāka thought. Śāntarakṣita’s *Tattvasaṅgraha*, together with Kamalaśīla’s commentary, includes discussions of materialist positions that are commonly associated with Lokāyata. Certain Jain philosophical works and commentaries, including those on the *Tattvārtha-sūtra*, likewise mention and refute doctrines that deny an afterlife and transcendental realities, and these critiques often quote or summarize Cārvāka arguments. Across these traditions, the materialist is a kind of foil, against whom more spiritual or metaphysical systems define themselves.

Beyond explicitly philosophical treatises, classical Sanskrit literature offers more atmospheric but still valuable testimony. Works of kāvya and prose narrative, such as those of Kālidāsa and Bāṇa, refer to Lokāyata teachers, studies, or attitudes, suggesting that such views were part of the broader intellectual landscape and not confined to technical debate. These literary allusions, while not doctrinal expositions, hint at how Cārvāka ideas were perceived in cultured society: skeptical, worldly, and often associated with a certain boldness in questioning sacred norms. Modern scholars then gather all these fragments and testimonies into systematic reconstructions, yet the seeker who approaches them does well to remember that the living voice of Cārvāka itself is heard only as an echo in the halls of its critics.