A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c8.14

v1.c8.14

The first of these passages enumerates the categories in an unusual order; sāmānya and viśeṣa are the fourth, respectively fifth category in Vaiśeṣika texts; both terms are used in their technical, not their literal, meaning on this occasion. The other passages employ the term sāmānya in its technical sense, i.e., it denotes the category, whereas the term viśeṣa does not denote the category of this name, the ultimate particular, but the universal-particular (sāmānyaviśeṣa) in its differentiating aspect; the ultimate particulars (antyaviśeṣa) are regarded as useless in medical theory. 31