Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Journal issue | 54 | 2018
Research Article | Bṛhaspati and the Barhaspatyas
Bṛhaspati and the Barhaspatyas
Abstract
The name of Bṛhaspati is associated with the materialist doctrine in India. He is supposed to be the preceptor of the gods. It was in order to help them in their battle against the demons that he created the materialist doctrine and thereby deluded the demons. This story, Puranic in origin, can be traced back to a late Upaniṣad, Maitrī. However, the story given in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and other sources does not contain anything specifically materialistic; all the heretical doctrines preached by Māyāmoha appear to be pre-existing; the Jains and the Buddhists are particularly mentioned, not the Lokāyatikas or the Cārvākas. More interestingly, in some other later sources, Bṛhaspati does not seem to be a god or a demi-god; he is as much a human as Kapila, Gautama and other founders of philosophical systems are. This trend of treating Bṛhaspati as a human is found in Kṛṣṇamiśra’s play, the Prabodhacandrodaya. He belongs to the camp of Kali. Whatever be the identity of Bṛhaspati, his attribution to materialism is inappropriate and has got nothing to do with the development of materialism in India.
Submitted: April 29, 2017 | Accepted: March 8, 2018 | Published June 25, 2018 | Language: en
Keywords Bṛhaspati • Materialism • Heretics • Purāṇas • Māyāmoha
Copyright © 2018 Ramkrishna Bhattacharya. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2018/01/008
