Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c8.s9.25

c8.s9.25

Following Udayana and Śaśadhara, the author of *Nyāyasiddhāntadīpa*, Gaṅgeśa gave as many as seven formulations of *pakṣa* in the invariable concomitance to prove the existence of God and also several formulations of the prima-facie view regarding the “syllogism of” in “being-an-effect” is “having-a-cause”. The universe itself being infinite cannot be taken as an individual *pakṣa*. In this way he goes on excluding everything that can be produced by human beings from the category of *pakṣa* to reach the conclusion that “what is not produced by an effort that is not produced can only by implication that which is produced by God”.⁶⁰ Gaṅgeśa also takes into account the theory of conjunction of the mind and the soul (*ātmamanaḥ saṁyoga*) for production of knowledge, and argues that no such conjunction was possible in the beginning of creation, there being no human body to make this conjunction possible. Therefore God has to be accepted here who could make the movement of mind possible. Another argument he employs in his discourse on *Īśvaravāda* is the ignorance of human beings with regard to the material cause of the universe.