The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c4.s6.19

c4.s6.19

(*b*) Mono-Bhautic compounds of higher orders. Again, mono-Bhautic compounds of the first order may chemically combine to form higher compounds, and as the ultimate Bhúta substratum is the same, the process of decomposition and re-composition will be essentially the same as before. The only doubtful point is whether in this case the component compound substances are broken up only into their constituent molecules, or into the original homogeneous Bhúta-atoms. Some of the later Vaiseshika scholiasts hold that the latter happens in every case of chemical composition, however complex, but the earlier Vaiseshika conceived that in the case of compounds of compounds the decomposition does not proceed so far as the original Bhúta-atoms, but that it is the specifically determined atoms constituting the molecules of the component compounds that are transformed under the impact of the heat-corpuscles; and then one such transformed atom (one or more according to another version) from the molecule of one component unites with one similarly transformed atom (one or more according to the other version) from the molecule of the other component. Prasastapáda, the great Vaiseshika doctor, holds this view. When, for example, in the fertilised ovum, the germ and the sperm substances, which, in the Vaiseshika view, are both isomeric modes of Earth (with accompaniments of other Bhútas), unite, both are broken up into homogeneous Earth-atoms, and it is these that chemically combine under the animal heat (and biomotor Enery, वायु) to form the germ-plasm (कलल). But, next, when the germ-plasm develops, deriving its nutrition from the chyle (blood) of the mother, the animal heat breaks up the molecules of the germ-plasm into its constituent atoms (कललारम्भकपरमाणवः), *i.e.* into atoms specifically determined, which by their grouping formed the germ-plasm, and then these germ-plasm atoms as radicles chemically combine with the atoms of the food-constituents, and thus produce cells and tissues. (समुत्पन्नपाकजैः कललारम्भकपरमाणुभिः अदृष्टवशात् उपजातक्रियैः आहारपरमाणुभिः सह सम्भूय शरीरान्तरमारभ्यते इत्येषा कल्पना। पितुः शुक्रं मातुः शोणितं तयोः सन्निपातानन्तरं