The reductionist tactics, which [Cārvāka / Lokāyata thinker] Jayarāśi shared with the Mādhyamika Buddhists [1], was traditionally classified by Brahmanic philosophers, e.g. the Naiyāyikas, as an eristical dispute or refutation-only debate (vitaṇḍā) and considered as a non-genuine argument, because the goal of an authentic debate was to strive for truth, understood of course in positive terms. Were such criticisms denying Jayarāśi a genuine argumentative value justified? Clearly not, and for a variety of reasons, the most important being that the main objective of Jayarāśi is indicated in the title of his treatise: the dissolution of all categories. How should we understand it? Was his approach purely negative, eristical, nihilistic or agnostic? His main objective, it seems, was not necessarily the strong claim that no truths can ever be known. Rather his intention was to show the fundamental dependence of our knowledge of reality on cognitive means and categories we accept more or less arbitrarily. The dissolution of all categories implies that the criteria on which all philosophical systems and theories of the world rest are in need of further evidence, which itself is not possible without adopting some of these categories or some other categories which again call for further evidence, but which categories and methods we chose is ultimately our arbitrary decision. To engage in what Brahmanic philosophers would call a ‘genuine debate’ (vāda) one would necessarily have to accept that such an arbitrary decision is ultimate and justified, thus giving up the further search for truth, even though the process would be infinite and doomed to terminate untimely. In other words, contradictions and inconsistencies are, in fact, inherently systemic in the sense that they are generated by a body of propositions each adopted arbitrary for this or other reason, and the systemic knowledge ultimately lacks reliable and coherent foundations. Just as with Pyrrhonism in Sextus' interpretation, Jayarāśi seems to be a perpetual investigator: he discards all theories and propositions that are neither consistent nor proof-tight, for which there is also no compelling evidence. But it would probably be far-fetched to claim that the idea of truth did not represent any value for him.
Piotr Balcerowicz, “Jayarāśi”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[1] The Mādhyamika defense against allegations of negative dialectic “as a non-genuine argument, because the goal of an authentic debate was to strive for truth, understood of course in positive terms“ is that negation served orthodox Buddhist soteriology (which eludes both positive and negative positions/views) through “non-propositioning”: negation being the means of eluding all propositions, navigating a Middle Way through all of them. For the Mādhyamika, then, Buddhist orthodoxy would be nothing other than the very truth argued for and asserted by negation; but, like Jayasari, Mādhyamaka also eludes the obligatory restrictions and terms of the Brahmanical “genuine debate”, and what Brahmanical philosophers presuppose to be “truth”.