Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s19.35

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.