Indian Logic and Atomism: An Exposition of the Nyaya and Vaiceshika Systems c19.s2.19

c19.s2.19

But, whatever the difficulties in the theory, it is plain that it was impossible for the schools to remain without it, for they could not otherwise conceive the beginning and end of the world in which they believed as an established traditional doctrine, and which, it must be remembered, was especially connected with Çiva as the destroyer and the Brahmanical deity par excellence. Moreover, even had they been willing to ignore this dogma, they would have been in no better case, for, on their theory of eternal independent substances, there is no ground of connexion between self and body, and an intermediary must be found. The Jain view of self-moving atoms is more simple in one sense, but it is less philosophical, reflecting as it does nothing but a primitive animism. The intervention of God as the first origin of motion was thus natural, and it obviously adapted itself well to the traditional cosmogony. But, even so, one difficulty remains obvious; how comes it that all the souls lose their activity at the time of dissolution, and regain it at the coming into being of the world? Such a preconceived harmony is inexplicable unless a direct intervention of God is imagined, consisting at least in postponing, while not diverting, the fruition of action—as in deep sleep, but, curiously enough Çrīdhara shrinks from drawing this obvious, and indeed necessary conclusion. While the Vedānta suppresses the reality of the individual in the absolute, and the Sāṃkhya insists on the existence only of mutually unconnected individuals, in both cases denying any possibility of system in the universe, the Nyāya-Vaiçeṣika produces, but in a mechanical and external form, a certain measure of unity. All three, however, agree in denying any real value to human experience and endeavour, and stand in fundamental contrast with the tendency of recent thought, whether theistic¹ or atheistic,² to view the process of the universe as real and to insist on the fact, not of the independence and self-sufficiency of the individual, but of the necessity of the communion of selves as the basis of their reality.³