Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s17.3

v2.c24.s17.3

The impulse of the Vaiśeṣika system is derived from its hostility to Buddhistic phenomenalism. While the Vaiśeṣika accepts the Buddhist view of the sources of knowledge, perception and inference, it argues that souls and substances are solid facts, and cannot be dismissed as fancy pictures of a faery tale, supposed to be enacted behind the scenes. It does not concern itself with the problems of theology, and Śaṃkara’s criticism even suggests that the dominant tendency of the system was in the direction of atheism.¹ The Vaiśeṣika in its early form, at any rate, was thought out in an age of excessive mental suppleness, when thought was full of the germs of scepticism.