The NM of Jayantabhaṭṭa is a seminal work of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system of philosophy. The author was a staunch opponent of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata and missed no opportunity of reviling it in the strongest possible terms. One of his favourite abuses employed against his adversaries is varāka, ‘wretched’. On one occasion he remarks: “But in such kind of assemblies (discussing philosophical questions), who would indeed care to remember the (name of the) wretched Cārvākas?” He always mentions the Cārvāka-s in a tone of derision and his attempts are directed to the refutation of the materialist tenets as they developed in India, viz.

a. bhūtacaitanyavāda (the doctrine of consciousness arising out of matter).

b. śarīrātmavāda or dehātmavāda (the doctrine of the self as something inseparable from the body, i.e., there can be no self independent of the body).

The Cārvāka-s are made to appear as an opponent (pūrvapakṣin) in relation to a third question, viz.

c. whether or not inference (anumāna) is to be admitted as a means of valid knowledge (pramāṇa).

Here, too, Jayanta ridicules the Cārvāka-s who allegedly do not recognize any other means of valid knowledge except perception (pratyakṣa). It is in this connection that he refers to the well-learned (suśikṣita) and cunning (dhūrta) Cārvāka-s. These two adjectives gave rise to the idea that there were at least two schools of the Cārvāka-s. This view has been accepted uncritically by almost all historians and analysts of Indian philosophy.