Chattopadhyaya's rational reconstruction of the history of Indian materialism in "Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism" and other texts, was one of the most significant contributions, states Rajendra Prasad. Chattopadhyaya's pursuit, notes Prasad, was "a result of much of his commitment to values of scholarship" as to the "communist movement" in India. His efforts to explain materialism and atheism in Indian philosophy in its antiquity, against the old fashioned conception that India was and is the land of dreamers and mystics, required "tremendous intellectual courage", yet "Chattopadhyaya never flinched in the face of isolation in his own profession".