Carvakas and incest

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>>A friend told me a few days ago that according to his memory Tibetan
>>Siddhanta (grub mtha') texts say that the Carvakas system was devised
to
>>account for the fact that the founder of the system was (this was not
quite
>>clear to me) a product of incest/a participant in incest with his own
>>mother. Are there Indic sources for such a legend? (I don't even have
an
>>exact Tibetan source, and have no materials at hand to check in.)

The cArvAka/lokAyata system is usually ascribed to bRhaspati. The
so-called bRhaspati sUtras and a commentary on them are both lost.
Indian tradition says that bRhaspati, indra's purohita, devised it to
mislead the daityas.

Vedic prajApati and bRhaspati are prototypes for brahmA. Both prajApati
and brahmA have no option but to create through an act of incest with a
daughter, which is denounced by rudra and/or mind-born sons who become
Rshis. See "The Mythology of Brahma" by Greg Bailey. In one account,
brahmA spills his semen, which is cast into the fire by the outraged
devas. From the burning coals (angAra), angiras is born, and when they
are ignited again, bRhaspati is born. Perchance, this is where the
incest theme for bRhaspati's birth comes from?

Vidyasankar

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