Within the Charvaka perspective, knowledge is grounded almost entirely in direct, immediate experience. The only fully trustworthy means of knowing is *pratyaksha*, direct perception through the senses. What can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled is taken as epistemically solid, and even inner experiences such as pleasure and pain are treated as a kind of direct perception. This strict empiricism serves as both a method and a boundary: it tells one how to know, and also where to stop in making claims about reality.

In contrast, Charvaka thinkers were deeply suspicious of all forms of knowing that go beyond what is directly given. *Anumana*, or inference, was criticized because it rests on assumed universal connections—such as “where there is smoke, there is fire”—that can never be perceived in all places and times. At best, such inferences yield probability rather than certainty, and thus cannot legitimately support far‑reaching claims about hidden entities or realms. Everyday inferences might be tolerated as practical conventions for navigating life, but they were not granted the status of reliable, truth‑yielding methods.

The same critical stance was applied to *shabda*, or verbal testimony, including the authority of sacred texts. Since testimony ultimately depends on human speakers or authors who can err or deceive, it was dismissed as an insecure foundation for knowledge. Other pramāṇas proposed by rival schools—such as comparison and similar indirect means—were likewise rejected as too vulnerable to mistake and speculation. From this vantage point, elaborate metaphysical systems and scriptural doctrines appear as constructions that float free of the only firm ground: what is actually experienced.

This rigorous commitment to perception had far‑reaching consequences for what could be affirmed as real. Claims about gods, souls, karma, rebirth, heaven, hell, or liberation were all treated as going beyond what the senses disclose and therefore as unwarranted. Only what is or has been perceptibly present is counted as a legitimate object of knowledge. In this way, Charvaka thought embodies a radical form of empiricism, using the discipline of direct perception to cut through metaphysical conjecture and to keep philosophical reflection tethered to the palpable, material world.