Jain canonical texts and their commentaries often shed welcome light on the philosophical systems prevalent in ancient and medieval India. For example, we come to know from the SKS that there were at least two materialist approaches in India before the seventh century CE. This view is corroborated by some Buddhist and Brahminical sources as well. In what follows I propose to deal with some such evidence and then try to locate the points of difference between the two materialist theories mentioned by Jacobi.

The SKS begins with an attack on the opponents of Jainism:

Śīlāṅka in his commentary glosses on the word samaṇa as the Buddhists, etc. (śākyādayo) and the māhaṇā as those who follow the doctrines of Bṛhaspati (bārhaspatyamatānusārinaśca brāhmaṇāḥ). He also mentions the followers of Sāṃkhya, Nyāya, and Mīmāṃsā and finally the Cārvāka-s and Lokāyatika-s who do not believe in the soul that goes to the other world, but think that the soul is nothing more than the five elements. The Cārvāka-s, he says, do not believe in virtue and vice (puṇyapāpe).

The next couple of verses in the SKS mention several other philosophical schools:

Some profess (the exclusive belief in) the five gross elements: earth, water, fire, air and space.