A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s5.38

c33.s5.38

The interpretation of the physics of the Vaiçeṣika presents great difficulties, and it is extremely dubious if we are justified with modern scholars,⁸ Indian and Western, in seeking to read recent results into the simple and rather rude concepts of the ancient text which the commentators did little to refine. Their interest was metaphysical, and it is not usual for science and philosophy to be effectively combined. The effort to show that the Vaiçeṣika system is at the base of Caraka's system of medicine, dating that system *c.* A. D. 80 and thence deducing the early date of the Vaiśeṣika, appears quite invalid, resting as it does on two errors, the belief that the system is vital to Caraka, and the assumption that the text of Caraka dates from the first century A. D. Still more absurd is the attempt to make out the school to be pre-Buddhist and to be derived from the Pūrvamīmāṅsā.