Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s19: III Theory of Knowledge

Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s19

Language
English

III Theory of Knowledge

v2.c24.s19.2

The logic of the Vaiśeṣika differs only slightly from the Nyāya logic. Knowledge, which is the problem of logic, assumes various forms, since its objects are endless.⁶ Four kinds of valid knowledge are admitted, which are perception (pratyakṣa), inference (laiṅgika), remembrance (smṛti), and intuitive knowledge (ārṣajñāna). Perception enables us to apprehend substances, qualities, actions and generalities. Gross substances, which are made up of parts, are within the reach of perception, while atoms and diads are not. The Vaiśeṣika admits yogic perception, by which the perceptual cognition of the soul (ātmapratyakṣa) arises.¹ The Vaiśeṣika brings comparison (upamāna), tradition (aitihya), and verbal knowledge (śabda) under inference.² The validity of scriptural statements is an inference from the authoritative character of the speakers.³ Like the Nyāya, the Vaiśeṣika repudiates the Mīmāṃsā theory of the eternity of sound and the absolute authoritativeness of the Vedas.⁴ While the Nyāya bases the validity of the Vedas on the ground of the direct communication from seers who had realised the eternal truths and laws, the Vaiśeṣika infers it from the unimpeachable veracity of the inspired seers. The scriptures give us real knowledge and not mere speculation. It is knowledge of things as they are, and in this sense has no beginning, though it is always directly known and realised by some beings in its entirety and by others in part. Abler minds realised the truths and communicated them to us. The Vedas, as collections of sentences, presuppose intelligent authors; and they must be possessors of complete and accurate knowledge of heaven and unseen destiny (adṛṣṭam). Gradually this authorship was assigned to God. "The authoritativeness of the Veda follows from its being the word of God."⁵ The meanings of words and sentences must be understood before they give us knowledge. Since the understanding of meanings depends on the recognition of universal concomitance, verbal knowledge is a case of inference.⁶ Ceṣṭā or gesture,⁷ arthāpatti or implication,⁸ sambhava or inclusion,⁹ and abhāva or negation,¹⁰ are all brought under inference. Smṛti, or remembrance, is given an independent place.¹¹ Ārṣajñāna is the insight of seers. If remembrance is ignored, since it only reproduces what has already been experienced, and if intuitive wisdom is brought under perception, we have, according to the Vaiśeṣika, only two sources of knowledge, intuition and inference.¹²

v2.c24.s19.3

⁶ P.P., p. 172.

v2.c24.s19.4

¹ V.S., ix. 1. 11-15.

v2.c24.s19.5

² P.P., pp. 212 ff.

v2.c24.s19.6

³ ix. 1. 3.

v2.c24.s19.7

⁴ V.S., ii. 2. 21-37; vi. 1. 1 ff.; N.S., ii. 2. 13-40.

v2.c24.s19.8

⁵ Tad vacanād āmnāyasya prāmānyam iti (x. 2. 9) See also Nyāyakandalī, p. 216, and V.S., vi. 1. 1-4.

v2.c24.s19.9

⁶ iii. 1. 7-15.

v2.c24.s19.10

⁷ P.P., p. 220.

v2.c24.s19.11

⁸ P.P., p. 223.

v2.c24.s19.12

⁹ P.P., p. 225; V.S., ix. 2. 5.

v2.c24.s19.13

¹⁰ Ibid.

v2.c24.s19.14

¹¹ P.P., p. 256.

v2.c24.s19.15

¹² S.S.S.S., v. 33.

v2.c24.s19.16

Four varieties of invalid knowledge are mentioned, which are doubt (saṃśaya), misconception (viparyaya), indefinite cognition (anadhyavasāya), and dream (svapna). Śivāditya reduces these four to two, doubt and error, and brings under the former conjecture (ūha), indeterminate knowledge and indirect reasoning.¹ Śrīdhara justifies the separate mention of dreams on the ground that “it occurs only in a particular condition of the body.”²

v2.c24.s19.17

¹ Saptapadārthī, p. 32.

v2.c24.s19.18

² Nyāyakandalī, p. 185.

v2.c24.s19.19

THE CATEGORIES

v2.c24.s19.20

For some centuries, as we have already seen, the Buddhist standpoint, which defined things by their consequences, interpreted everything by its contexts, and denied self-sufficiency everywhere, dominated the mind of the country. Everything has being through mutual connections, and nothing exists in and for itself. As relations are the stuff of life, soul and matter are simply sets of relations. The Vaiśeṣika protests against this view and attempts to expound a more satisfactory plan, which reality seems to offer and justify. It takes its stand on the deliverance of the empirical consciousness, which deals first and last with real and separate things. The simplest and the widest spread of the characters of reality is that of things and relations between them. When we open our eyes we see spread out before us a material world with its different things and arrangements, on which thought can exercise itself; when we look within we find a non-material one with its terms and relations. Sound philosophy requires us to confine our attention to the things of experience, the objects of knowledge, and accept only such hypotheses as are found to be indispensable for the explanation of the order of experience. An analytic survey is the first need of an accurate philosophy, and the results of the Vaiśeṣika analysis are found set forth in the doctrine of the padārthas.

v2.c24.s19.21

Padārtha means literally the meaning of a word. A padārtha is an object which can be thought (artha) and named (pada). All things which exist, which can be cognised and named,¹ in short, all objects of experience,² and not merely the things of the physical world, are padārthas. The sixteen padārthas of the Nyāya are not an analysis of existing things, but are a list of the central topics of the logical science. But the categories of the Vaiśeṣika attempt a complete analysis of the objects of knowledge.

v2.c24.s19.22

¹ Astitva, abhidheyatva, jñeyatva (P.P., p. 16).

v2.c24.s19.23

² Pramitiviṣayāḥ padārthāḥ (Saptapadārthī, p. 2).

v2.c24.s19.24

The Vaiśeṣika categories include not only things predicable of another, but also subjects capable of having things predicated of them. Aristotle’s categories are a logical classification of predicates only, and not a metaphysical classification of all thinkable objects. The Vaiśeṣika thinkers, as much as Aristotle, seem to have been aware of the intimate relation between name and thing. Though Aristotle classifies words, it happens to be a classification of things as well, for whatever receives a separate name is a thing. “Of words expressed without syntax (i.e. single words), each signifies either substance, or quantity, or quality, or relation, or place, or time, or disposition (i.e. attitude or internal arrangement), or appurtenance, or action (doing), or suffering (being done to).”³ Of these ten categories the last nine are predicable of something else, while the first substance is *ens*, and cannot be predicated of anything, not even of itself, for then it is no more a substance but becomes an attribute. But Aristotle is not very strict in his usage. The forms of common speech determined his classification, and among words we have those which signify the substance of a concrete individual. When the substance is a concrete individual, we ask, What is it? and answer, a horse or a cow, which Aristotle calls a substance, though it is really a quality.⁴ He distinguishes first and second substances, and holds that the first are not properly used as predicates. The inclusion of the logical subject in a classification of predicates shows that Aristotle intended his categories to be also a list of existences or “kinds of being.” We have in Aristotle’s list substances and qualities which are either permanent or temporary. Almost all the commentators agree that the category of relation should be taken as including the last six of his scheme. We may therefore take substance, quality, temporary or permanent, and relation as exhausting all significations.

v2.c24.s19.25

³ Aristotle’s Categories, ii. 6; Minto’s Logic, p. 113.

v2.c24.s19.26

⁴ Cp. Johnson: “A substantive proper cannot characterise, but is necessarily characterised” (Logic, part ii, p. xii).

v2.c24.s19.27

The Vaiśeṣika adopts a sixfold classification of padārthas into substance (dravya), quality (guṇa), activity (karma), generality (sāmānya), particularity (viśeṣa), and inherence (samavāya), to which a seventh non-existence (abhāva) was added by the later Vaiśeṣikas, Śrīdhara, Udayana and Śivāditya.¹ The inclusion of non-existence under padārthas suggests the transformation of an ontological into an epistemological scheme. Our beliefs are positive or negative, and not things which exist. In its initial stages the Vaiśeṣika endeavoured to determine the general characteristics which apply to existence as a whole, but soon turned its attention to the nature of beliefs and inquired what sorts of beliefs were true and what not. That something is, that something exists, is the first proposition of the Vaiśeṣika philosophy. But nothing can simply be. If we stop with bare existence and refuse to go further, then, as Hegel has taught us, we are left with a mere blank, and even the first principle that something exists has to be given up. So we must push forward and assert that a thing is because it possesses certain properties besides mere existence. Whatever exists does so because it has certain qualities. Substances exist and have qualities. We have two kinds of qualities, those which reside in a plurality of objects and those which are confined to individuals. The former are the general qualities (sāmānya), while the latter are distinguished as permanent (guṇa) and transitory (karma). Inherence is a special kind of relation.²

v2.c24.s19.28

¹ Praśastapāda mentions only the six categories. The sevenfold scheme became established by the time of Śivāditya, as is evident from the title of his work, Saptapadārthī. Śaṃkara and Haribhadra attribute to the Vaiśeṣika only six categories. See S.B., ii. 2. 17; and Ui: Vaiśeṣika Philosophy, p. 126.

v2.c24.s19.29

² Dravya and guṇa of the Vaiśeṣika correspond to Aristotle's substance and quality. Aristotle's quantity is brought under guṇa. Relations are of two kinds: external, like conjunction (saṃyoga), or internal, like inherence (samavāya). The first is regarded as a quality and the second is made a separate category. The remaining categories fall under relation, while space and time are taken as independent substances. Activity is

v2.c24.s19.30

The first three categories of substance, quality and action possess a real objective existence.¹ Kaṇāda calls them artha, and declares, in treating of yogic insight, that we can have an intuition of them.² The other three, generality, particularity and inherence, are products of intellectual discrimination (buddhyapekṣam).³ They are logical categories. Praśastapāda observes: "they have their sole being within themselves (svātmasattvam), have the intellect as their indicator (buddhilakṣaṇatvam), they are not effects (akāryatvam), not causes (akāraṇatvam), have no generality or particularity (asāmānyaviśeṣavattvam), are eternal (nityatvam), and are not expressible by the word 'thing' (arthaśabdānabhidheyatvam)."'⁴ The proof of the reality of the last three categories is said to be logical,⁵ the implication being that these are not capable of direct apprehension, a view which was modified when the Nyāya and the Vaiśeṣika principles got mixed up. In early Vaiśeṣika, while all categories are said to possess the feature of existence in general (astitva),⁶ a distinction is made between two kinds of being, sattāsaṃbandha, ascribed to substances, qualities and actions, and svātmasattva, or the being of generality, particularity and inherence.⁷ Udayana in his Kiraṇāvali defines the former as subsistence of being by the

v2.c24.s19.31

¹ V.S., i. 2. 7; viii. 2. 3; P.P., p. 17. ² ix. I. 14. ³ i. 2. 3. ⁴ P.P., p. 19; V S., i. 2. 3-10, 12, 14, 16; vii. 2. 26. ⁵ Buddhir eva lakṣaṇam pramāṇam. ⁶ P.P., p. 11. ⁷ P.P., p. 19.

v2.c24.s19.32

karma, while passivity is only the absence of activity. Property may be either general or particular. Disposition is a quality. If Aristotle had proceeded on a definite principle, he would have argued thus: Things possessing qualities, either permanent or temporary, exist in relations of time and space bound together with other things in a network of reciprocal relations, and in that case substance, quality, action and relation would be the main heads. The defective character of Aristotle's analysis was noticed by the Stoics and the Neo-platonists, Kant, who thinks that Aristotle simply jotted down the categories as they occurred to him, and Hegel, who observes that Aristotle threw them together anyhow. Mill rather contemptuously remarks that Aristotle's list "is like a division of animals into men, quadrupeds, horses, asses and ponies." Cp. with the Vaiśeṣika scheme the Jaina classification of all things into substances, qualities and modifications (I.P., pp. 312 ff., and Uttarādhyayana, I., S.B.E., vol. xlv). The earlier Mīmāṃsakas accept the categories of power (śakti) and similarity (sādṛśya). Udayana rejects these, as well as number (saṃkhyā). See Kiraṇāvali, p. 6; Saptapadārthī, p. 10; Nyāyakandalī, pp. 7, 15, 144 ff.

v2.c24.s19.33

relation of inherence, and the latter as self-sufficient existence independent of all being. Śaṃkara Miśra is more helpful, for in his Upaskāra he defines sattāsambandha as liability to destruction and capacity to produce effects from out of its nature. This seems to have been the technical way of stating existence in space and time. Svātmasattva, or self-sufficient existence, is independent of space and time, and therefore something which belongs to the timeless categories. Though the latter are products of abstraction, they are regarded as more real than the things themselves from which they are abstracted. The Vaiśeṣika insists on the timeless and non-causal character of the categories of generality, particularity and inherence, and warns us against the natural tendency to attribute existence in space and time to the results of abstraction.

v2.c24.s19.34

SUBSTANCE

v2.c24.s19.35

The category by which the Vaiśeṣika pits itself definitely against all idealistic systems is that of substance. Even the unthinking admit that substances are. Objects in the external world come to us as real, in and for themselves, present actualities with a subsistence of their own. Substance denotes the feature of the self-subsistence of things out there. What we vaguely call being is nothing more than a series of things variously conditioned in time and space and distinguished from one another by different properties. The Buddhist view that there is no substance apart from its qualities, or a whole apart from its parts, contradicts the testimony of experience.¹ Reality presents us with substances marked by the possession of qualities and parts. We are able to recognise the jar we saw yesterday, which would be impossible if the jar were a string of sensations.² It is a matter of common experience that qualities occur in groups, which are invariable in character and sufficiently marked off from others. An apple always consists of the same group of qualities and invariably grows on the same kind of tree. The unbroken continuity of the mummy or the mountain which has a continued existence for several millenniums is unintelligible apart from the assumption of substances in which qualities inhere. "That which contains in it action and qualities and is a co-existent cause"¹ is a substance. It is the substrate of qualities.² The other categories are devoid of qualities.

v2.c24.s19.36

¹ N.V., i. 1. 13.

v2.c24.s19.37

² N.S., ii. 1. 30-36.

v2.c24.s19.38

¹ i. 1. 15. ² Guṇāśrayo dravyam. ³ Adye kṣaṇe nirguṇaṁ dravyaṁ tiṣṭhati. ⁴ Siddhāntamuktāvalī, 3. ⁵ Nityatva, anāśritatva, antyaviśeṣavatva (P.P., p. 16). ⁶ P.P., p. 20; Nyāyakandalī, p.

v2.c24.s19.39

The Vaiśeṣika believes that a substance is something over and above the qualities. At the moment the substances are produced they are devoid of qualities.³ For if qualities arise simultaneously with substances, there cannot be any distinction between them. If they do not arise, then substances would be free from qualities, and then the definition of substance as that which possesses qualities seems to be violated. To meet this difficulty, it is said that substance is the substrate of qualities either in the relation of intimate union (samavāya-sambandha) or antecedent negation (prāgabhāva), *i.e.* future existence. In other words, a substance is the basis of qualities, actual or potential, present or future.⁴ The Vaiśeṣika is anxious to assert the existence of something which has qualities without being itself a quality, for we predicate qualities of substances and not qualities of qualities. Nor can it be said that we predicate one quality of a group of qualities. But since a substance cannot be conceived apart from qualities, it is defined as possessing qualities.

v2.c24.s19.40

A distinction is made between eternal and non-eternal substances. Whatever depends on something else is not eternal. Compound substances (avayavidravyas) are dependent and transitory. Simple substances have the characteristics of eternity, independence and ultimate individuality.⁵ They are neither caused nor destroyed. Non-eternal substances are caused and destroyed not by themselves but by something different from themselves.⁶

v2.c24.s19.41

Earth, water, light, air, ākāśa, time, space, soul and manas are the nine substances intended to comprise all corporeal and incorporeal things.¹ The Vaiśeṣika is not a materialism, though a realistic scheme, since it admits non-material substances like souls, and regards as real not the gross material substances but their minima. Of the nine substances, earth, water, light, air, soul and manas have many individuals.² These, with the exception of soul, are extended, have relations of distance and proximity, are capable of action and possess speed.³ Ākāśa, time and space are all-pervading, have the largest dimensions and are the common receptacles of all corporeal things.⁴ Soul and manas, ākāśa, time and space, air and ultimate atoms are not ordinarily perceptible.⁵ A distinction is made between corporeal (mūrta) and elemental (bhūta) substances. The former have definite dimensions,⁶ act and move. Elemental substances, singly or in combination, become the material causes of the products of the world. Manas, though atomic, does not produce anything else, while ākāśa, though all-pervading, produces sound. Earth, water, light and air are both corporeal and productive.⁷

v2.c24.s19.42

²⁰ See V.S., i. 1. 9-10, 12, 15, 18; X. 2. 1-2.

v2.c24.s19.43

¹ An interesting question about the nature of darkness (tamas) is raised by Śrīdhara (Nyāyakandalī, p. 9; V.S., v. 2. 19-20). Kumārila regards it as a distinct substance with the quality of colour, i.e. blackness, and the action of motion (S.V., p. xliii). The Prābhākaras hold that darkness is the absence of light (Jhā: P.M., p. 93). Annam Bhaṭṭa is of this view (Tarkasaṃgraha, p 3). Darkness is not ranked as a substance by the Vaiśeṣika, since it is destitute of qualities. It is said to possess the black colour figuratively, even as the colourless sky is spoken of as blue. It is a variety of non-existence, being merely the negation of light (V.S., v. 2. 19; S.D.S., x).

v2.c24.s19.44

² Anekatvam pratyekaṃ vyaktibhedaḥ (Nyāyakandalī, p. 22).

v2.c24.s19.45

³ P.P., p. 22.

v2.c24.s19.46

⁴ Ibid.

v2.c24.s19.47

⁵ V.S., viii. I. 2.

v2.c24.s19.48

⁶ Paricchinnaparimāṇatvam.

v2.c24.s19.49

⁷ Tarkadīpikā, p. 14.

v2.c24.s19.50

The Vaiśeṣika theory of the soul is practically identical with that of the Nyāya, though a direct perception of the self where the self is both the perceiver and the perceived is not admitted.⁸ Comparison does not help us. Āgama, or revelation and inference, are our only sources of knowledge.⁹ The existence of the self is inferred from the fact that consciousness cannot be a property of the body, sense-organs or the manas.¹⁰ In addition to the qualities of pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, volition, and knowledge, the facts of expiration and inspiration, the closing and the opening of the eyelids, the healing up of bodily injuries, the movement of the mind and the affections of the senses are urged as evidence for the existence of the self.¹ In its natural state the self is devoid of intelligence, as in pralaya. It has cognitions of things when it is connected with the body.² Consciousness is sustained by the ātman, though it is not an essential or inalienable characteristic of it. By means of manas the soul knows not only external things but also its own qualities. Though the soul is all-pervading, its life of knowing, feeling and activity resides only where the body is.

v2.c24.s19.51

⁸ V.S., iii. 2. 6.

v2.c24.s19.52

⁹ V.S., iii. 2. 8 and 18.

v2.c24.s19.53

¹⁰ P.P., p. 69; V.S., iii. 1. 19.

v2.c24.s19.54

¹ V.S., iii. 2. 4-13.

v2.c24.s19.55

² Aśarīriṇām ātmanām na viṣayāvabodhaḥ (Nyāyakandalī, p. 57; see also p. 279).

v2.c24.s19.56

The plurality of souls is inferred from differences in status, the variety of conditions.³ The scriptural injunctions assume the distinctness of souls.⁴ Each soul undergoes the consequences of its own deeds.⁵ It remains one throughout the series of its experiences.⁶ Śrīdhara repudiates the view of the oneness of self.⁷ There would be no risk of the absolute dissolution of the world by the emancipation of the souls from it, since their number is infinite. The pluralistic bias of the Vaiśeṣika leads its followers to look upon plurality as ultimate. The freed souls are conceived as eternally existing with specific differences.⁸ Though each soul is supposed to be distinguished by a peculiarity (viśeṣa), it is impossible for us to know what it is. The differences among souls are due to their connections with bodies. Even in rebirth the manas accompanies the soul and gives it individuality. For all practical purposes the distinctiveness of the soul is determined by the distinctiveness of the manas, which accompanies it throughout its career. There are as many of them as there are souls. As the same manas accompanies the soul throughout its career, there is the possibility of the continuity as well as the survival of character.¹ A distinction is made between the individual soul and the supreme soul, jīva and Īśvara.² The two are similar but not identical.

v2.c24.s19.57

³ Vyavasthāto nānā (V.S., iii. 2. 20).

v2.c24.s19.58

⁴ Śāstrasāmarthyāt (V.S., iii. 2. 21).

v2.c24.s19.59

⁵ vi. I. 5.

v2.c24.s19.60

⁶ Nyāyakandalī, p. 86.

v2.c24.s19.61

⁷ "If the self were one, the contact of manas would be common to all persons. . . . For one, however, who admits of many selves, even though all selves, being omnipresent, would be present in all bodies, yet his experiences would not be common to all of them, as each of them would experience only such pleasures, etc., as would appear in connection with the particular body that will have been brought about by the previous karma of that self, and not those belonging to the other bodies. And the karma also belongs to that self by whose body it has been done. Hence the restriction of the body is due to the restriction of the karma and vice versa, the mutual interdependence going on endlessly" (Nyāyakandalī, pp. 87-88).

v2.c24.s19.62

⁸ It is difficult to accept Dr. Das Gupta's suggestion that the Vaiśeṣika held that the "self was one, though, for the sake of many limitations, and also because of the need for the performance of acts enjoined by the scriptures, they are regarded as many" (History of Indian Philosophy, p. 290, n. 1). The Vaiśeṣika is interested in the empirical variety and not in ultimate truth, and the view of plurality, based as it is on the doctrine of viśeṣa, is accepted by it as final.

v2.c24.s19.63

¹ P.P., p. 89; V.S., vii. 2. 21; iii. 2. 22.

v2.c24.s19.64

² Kiraṇāvali, p. 7. See also Upaskāra, iii. 2. 18.

v2.c24.s19.65

Ākāśa, space and time have no lower species and are names of individuals.³ To account for the variety of experience, these comprehensive unities are assumed. All phenomena take place in them. Space and time are the instrumental causes of all produced things.⁴ Reality is a process or a passage, and is therefore both spatial and temporal.

v2.c24.s19.66

³ P.P., p. 58.

v2.c24.s19.67

⁴ P.P., p. 25.

v2.c24.s19.68

In the case of physical changes we require a whole in which they occur. All atomists ascribe reality to empty space. If there were more than one space, then atoms which whirl about in different spaces cannot have anything to do with one another. Space is the basis of the notions of east and west, of far and near.⁵ The apparent diversity of space is determined by its effects.⁶ Things maintain their relative positions which they could not do apart from space.

v2.c24.s19.69

⁵ Tarkasaṃgraha, p. 16; Bhāṣāpariccheda, pp. 46-47.

v2.c24.s19.70

⁶ V.S., ii. 2. 13.

v2.c24.s19.71

The form of time is essential to the concrete changes of nature, such as production, destruction and persistence of things. It is the force which brings about changes in non-eternal substances. It is not the cosmic power which causes the movements, but is the condition of all movement.⁷ All perceptible things are perceived as moving, changing, coming into existence and as passing out of it. Discrete things have no power of self-origination or self-movement. If they had, there would not be that mutual relation of things, which persists in spite of all change. The movement is ordered, which means that there must be a reality which has a general relation to all changes. Time is regarded as the independent real pervading the whole universe and making the ordered movement of things possible. It is the basis of the relations of priority and posteriority, simultaneity and non-simultaneity, and of the notion of soon and late.¹ There is only one time which is omnipresent in dimension,² individual in character, and has the qualities of conjunction and disjunction. Conventional notions, as moment, minute, hour, year, etc., are derived by abstraction from concrete time. Though the early form of the Vaiśeṣika makes time an eternal substance,³ later thinkers reduce it to a form of all experience.⁴ We do not know what time is in itself, but our experience is cast in the form of time. It is the formal cause (asamavāyikāraṇa) of the relations of priority and posteriority, while their material cause is the nature of objects, as jar, cloth and the like. Time which is one appears as many on account of its association with the changes that are related to it.⁵

v2.c24.s19.72

⁷ ii. 2. 9; v. 2. 26. This view is not to be confused with the kālavāda, which deifies time.

v2.c24.s19.73

¹ V.S., ii. 2. 6.

v2.c24.s19.74

² vii. 1. 25.

v2.c24.s19.75

³ ii. 2. 7.

v2.c24.s19.76

⁴ Atītādivyavāharahetuḥ (Tarkasaṁgraha, p 15; Bhāṣāpariccheda, p. 45).

v2.c24.s19.77

⁵ Nyāyamañjari, p. 136.

v2.c24.s19.78

The distinction between time and space is noticed in the Vaiśeṣika treatises. Space deals with coexistence, time with successions, or more accurately, space deals with visible objects, while time deals with things produced and destroyed.⁶ Śaṁkara Miśra holds that the relations of time are constant or irreversible (niyata), while those of space are not irreversible (aniyata).⁷ Things move by virtue of time and hold together by virtue of space. While space and time cover the most comprehensive kinds of relations, transition from place to place, or state to state, spatial locomotion and temporal alternation, they are only formal and imply real things which move and change.

v2.c24.s19.79

⁶ Siddhāntacandrodaya says: "Janyamātraṁ kriyāmātraṁ vā kālopādhiḥ, mūrtamātraṁ digupādhiḥ."

v2.c24.s19.80

⁷ Upaskāra, ii. 2. 10. Cp. with this Kant's Second and Third Analogies of Experience.

v2.c24.s19.81

Ākāśa is a simple, continuous, infinite substance, and is the substratum of sound. The qualities of colour, taste, smell and tangibility do not belong to it. By the process of elimination sound is proved to be the distinguishing quality of ākāśa.¹ It is inactive (niṣkriya). All corporeal objects are found conjoined with it.² The atoms which are infinitely small cannot make up a magnitude by coming together or touching each other. If they stand apart from one another and yet are joined somehow so as to constitute a system, it can only be through the medium of ākāśa. The atoms unite, but not continuously. That which binds together the atoms, though not itself atomic, is the ākāśa. If ākāśa were also discrete, *i.e.* capable of being analysed into atoms, then we shall have to assume some other connecting tissue which is not atomic. Ākāśa is eternal, omnipresent, supersensible, and has the qualities of individuality, conjunction and disjunction. Ākāśa fills all space, though it is not space itself, since it cannot affect or operate on things without entering into special relations with them and thereby having sound produced in it. That which sustains the positional relations and order of discrete things is called dik, though it is not space itself, if the latter means room or place, which is ākāśa. The distinction between ākāśa and space is admitted in view of the fact that while ākāśa is regarded as the material cause of the special quality of sound, space is the general cause of all effects.

v2.c24.s19.82

¹ V.S., ii. 1. 27, 29-31.

v2.c24.s19.83

² N.S., iv. 2. 21-22.

v2.c24.s19.84

The physical theory of the Vaiśeṣika is developed in connection with the five substances of earth, water, light, air and ākāśa. Matter, as we meet with it, is a mixture of five elements, containing one or the other in a predominant degree. The five phenomenal products (bhūtas) are the five states of matter, solid (earth), liquid (water), gaseous (air), luminous (light), etheric (ākāśa). The earth possesses the four qualities of smell, taste, colour and tangibility, water the three qualities of taste, colour and tangibility, light the two of colour and tangibility, while air has the quality of tangibility and ākāśa that of sound.³ Though earth contains a number of qualities, we yet say it has smell on account of the predominance of this quality.⁴ If water and other substances besides earth possess smell, it is because particles of earth are mixed up with them. We cannot think of earth without smell, though we can so think of air and water. Things made of earth are of three kinds, bodies, sense-organs and objects of perception.¹ The special quality of water is taste. Light has for its special property luminosity. Air is invisible, though limited in extent and made up of parts. The discrete nature of air is inferred from the movements in the air, which would not be possible were air an absolute continuum devoid of parts.² Its existence is inferred from touch,³ and it is said to be a substance, since it possesses quality and action. Temperature is the special quality of air. The ultimate constituents of the concrete things of earth, air, light and water are called atoms.

v2.c24.s19.85

³ N.S., iii. 1. 60-61.

v2.c24.s19.86

⁴ N.S., iii. 1. 66.

v2.c24.s19.87

¹ P.P., p. 27.

v2.c24.s19.88

² V.S., ii. I. 14.

v2.c24.s19.89

³ The ancient Vaiśeṣikas and Annam Bhaṭṭa hold that air is not perceived, but only known by inference. They argue that air has no colour and so cannot be seen. The modern Naiyāyikas say that a thing need not be seen for being perceived. We may perceive things by touch.

Linked texts (9)