A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.37

c18.37

The main importance of the system lies in the logical categories which it set up and under which it classed all phenomena. The six which it originally set up are substance, quality, motion, generality, particularity, and inherence. They are rigorously defined and further subdivided. The most interesting is that of inherence or inseparable connection (*samavāya*), which, being clearly distinguished from that of accident or separable connection (*saṃyoga*), is described as the relation between a thing and its properties, the whole and its parts, genus and species, motion and the object in motion. Later was added a seventh, that of non-existence (*abhāva*), which, by affording special facilities for the display of subtlety, has had a momentous influence on Indian logic. This category was further subdivided into prior and posterior non-existence (which we should respectively call future and past existence), mutual non-existence (as between a jar and cloth), and absolute non-existence (as fire in water).