Buddhist and Jain scholars directed their critiques at several core features of the Charvaka outlook, especially its epistemology and its rejection of any reality beyond the immediately perceptible. Charvaka thinkers are portrayed as accepting only direct perception (pratyakṣa) as a valid means of knowledge and dismissing inference and scripture as unreliable. Buddhist and Jain logicians argued that such a stance is self‑defeating, since the universal claim “only perception is valid” itself rests on inference rather than perception. They also observed that ordinary life, as well as Charvaka argumentation, constantly relies on inference—such as inferring fire from smoke or other minds from observable behavior—so the radical restriction to perception appeared incoherent. In this way, Charvaka was seen as cutting off the very branch on which its reasoning sat.

The denial of afterlife, karma, and rebirth drew equally sharp responses. Charvaka held that there is no soul distinct from the body, that consciousness arises from material elements and ends at death, and that there is no karmic continuity beyond this life. Buddhists countered that such a view undermines any deeper moral causality, since it allows only for immediate, visible consequences and ignores the extended web of cause and effect central to their understanding of suffering and its cessation. Jain thinkers, affirming an eternal jīva bound by karma, argued that scriptural testimony, the insight of advanced ascetics, and rational reflection support the reality of karmic bondage and rebirth. Both traditions also maintained that without some form of karmic continuity, it becomes difficult to account for the evident inequalities of birth and experience among beings.

Ethically, Charvaka was often depicted by its opponents as advocating a kind of this‑worldly hedonism—summarized in the slogan “eat, drink, be merry”—because it denied any post‑mortem reward or punishment. Buddhist authors criticized this as short‑sighted, holding that unrestrained pursuit of sensual pleasure intensifies attachment and suffering (duḥkha) and obstructs the path to freedom from craving. Jain writers saw the same orientation as fundamentally at odds with ahiṃsā, self‑restraint, and ascetic discipline, and argued that without belief in karmic consequences there is no compelling ground for rigorous non‑violence, truthfulness, and other vows. In their polemical portrayals, Charvaka ethics seemed to invite moral laxity and social disorder, eroding respect for teachers, scriptures, and disciplined practice.

Finally, the Charvaka reduction of mind to matter and its denial of any genuine liberation were taken as profound spiritual errors. Charvaka likened consciousness to an emergent property of the elements, comparable to intoxication arising from fermented ingredients, and rejected the possibility of a transcendent state such as nirvāṇa or kevala‑jñāna. Buddhists responded that mental phenomena, though conditioned, cannot be fully captured in terms of gross matter, and that the path reveals distinctive causal laws governing the mind. Jains insisted that the soul’s capacities for knowledge, bliss, and moral agency cannot be explained by inert matter alone, and that a path of purification leading to liberation is therefore both meaningful and necessary. Across these debates, Buddhist and Jain scholars portrayed Charvaka materialism as philosophically inconsistent and spiritually impoverished, unable to sustain a coherent account of knowledge, morality, or ultimate human fulfillment.