Vaisheshika-sutra with Commentary

by Nandalal Sinha | 1923 | 149,770 words | ISBN-13: 9789332869165

The Vaisheshika-sutra 1.2.6, English translation, including commentaries such as the Upaskara of Shankara Mishra, the Vivriti of Jayanarayana-Tarkapanchanana and the Bhashya of Chandrakanta. The Vaisheshika Sutras teaches the science freedom (moksha-shastra) and the various aspects of the soul (eg., it's nature, suffering and rebirth under the law of karma). This is sutra 6 (‘final species excluded’) contained in Chapter 2—Of Genus and Species—of Book I (of the predicables).

Sūtra 1.2.6 (Final Species excluded)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 1.2.6:

अन्यत्रान्त्येभ्यो विशेषेभ्यः ॥ १.२.६ ॥

anyatrāntyebhyo viśeṣebhyaḥ || 1.2.6 ||

anyatra—elsewhere; antyebhyaḥ—final; viśeṣebhyaḥ—than species.

6. (The statement of Genus and Species has been made) with the exception of the final Species.

Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:

(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)

But is it the same Species which has been enumerated as a Predicable which is here described as both Genus and Species? Removing this curiosity of the disciples he says:

[Read sūtra 1.2.6 above]

The meaning is that the statement of Genus and Species is to the exclusion of those final Species[1] residing in eternal substances, which have been mentioned above. ‘Antyaḥ,’ i.e., ‘final,’ means those which exist or appear at the end (of the division or dissolution of compounds.) The teachers say that they are ‘final,’ because after them there is no other principle of differentiation. According to the Vṛttikāra they are ‘final Species,’ because they exist in enternal [eternal] Substances, i.e., Substances which exist at the end of production and destruction. They are really Species only, the causes of the consciousness of differentiation, and not of the form of Genus also.—6.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

It is the introduction of these “final species,” which is the reason why the system of Kaṇāda is called the Vaiśeṣika philosophy of final species.

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