Part 4 - Philosophy in the Vaiśeṣika sūtras

The Vaiśeṣika sūtras begin with the ostensible purpose of explaining virtue (dharma) (I. i. 1) and dharma according to it is that by which prosperity (abhyudaya) and salvation (nihśreyasa) are attained. Then it goes on to say that the validity of the Vedas depends on the fact that it leads us to prosperity and salvation. Then it turns back to the second sūtra and says that salvation comes as the result of real knowledge, produced by special excellence of dharma, of the characteristic features of the categories of substance (dravya), quality (guna), class concept (sāmānya), particularity (viśeṣa), and inherence (samavāya)^[1]. The dravyas are earth, water, fire, air, ether, time, space, soul, and mind.

The guṇas are colour, taste, odour, touch, number, measure, separations, contact, disjoining, quality of belonging to high genus or to species^[2]. Action (karma) means upward movement, downward movement, contraction, expansion and horizontal movement. The three common qualities of dravya, guṇa and karma are that they are existent, non-eternal, substantive, effect, cause, and possess generality and particularity. Dravya produces other dravyas and the guṇas other guṇas. But karma is not necessarily produced by karma. Dravya does not destroy either its cause or its effect, but the guṇas are destroyed both by the cause and by the effect. Karma is destroyed by karma. Dravya possesses karma and guṇa and is regarded as the material (samavāyi) cause. Guṇas inhere in dravya, cannot possess further guṇas, and are not by themselves the cause of contact or disjoining.

Karma is devoid of guṇa, cannot remain at one time in more than one object, inheres in dravya alone, and is an independent cause of contact or disjoining. Dravya is the material cause (samavāyi) of (derivative) dravyas, guṇa, and karma; guṇa is also the nonmaterial cause (asamāvāyi) of dravya, guṇa and karma. Karma is the general cause of contact, disjoining, and inertia in motion (vega). Karma is not the cause of dravya. For dravya may be produced even without karma^[3]. Dravya is the general effect of dravya. Karma is dissimilar to guṇa in this that it does not produce karma. The numbers two, three, etc., separateness, contact and disjoining are effected by more than one dravya. Each karma not being connected with more than one thing is not produced by more than one thing^[4]. A dravya is the result of many contacts (of the atoms). One colour may be the result of many colours. Upward movement is the result of heaviness, effort and contact. Contact and disjoining are also the result of karma. In denying the causality of karma it is meant that karma is not the cause of dravya and karma^[5].

In the second chapter of the first book Kaṇāda first says that if there is no cause, there is no effect, but there may be the cause even though there may not be the effect. He next says that genus (sāmānya) and species (viśeṣa) are relative to the understanding; being (bhāva) indicates continuity only and is hence only a genus. The universals of substance, quality and action may be both genus and species, but viśeṣa as constituting the ultimate differences (of atoms) exists (independent of any percipient). In connection with this he says that the ultimate genus is being (sattā) in virtue of which things appear as existent; all other genera may only relatively be regarded as relative genera or species. Being must be regarded as a separate category, since it is different from dravya, guṇa and karma, and yet exists in them, and has no genus or species. It gives us the notion that something is and must be regarded as a category existing as one identical entity in all dravya, guṇa, and karma, for in its universal nature as being it has no special characteristics in the different objects in which it inheres. The specific universals of thingness (drcivyatva), qualitiness (guṇatva) or actionness (karmatva) are also categories which are separate from universal being (bhāva or sattā) for they also have no separate genus or species and yet may be distinguished from one another, but bhāva or being was the same in all.

In the first chapter of the second book Kaṇāda deals with substances. Earth possesses colour, taste, smell, and touch; water, colour, taste, touch, liquidity, and smoothness (snigdha); fire, colour and touch; air, touch; but none of these qualities can be found in ether (ākāśa). Liquidity is a special quality of water because butter, lac, wax, lead, iron, silver, gold, become liquids only when they are heated, while water is naturally liquid itself^[6]. Though air cannot be seen, yet its existence can be inferred by touch, just as the existence of the genus of cows may be inferred from the characteristics of horns, tails, etc. Since this thing inferred from touch possesses motion and quality, and does not itself inhere in any other substance, it is a substance (dravya) and is eternal^[7]. The inference of air is of the type of inference of imperceptible things from certain known characteristics called sāmānyato dṛṣṭa.

The name of air “vāyu” is derived from the scriptures. The existence of others different from us has (asmadviśiṣṭānām) to be admitted for accounting for the giving of names to things (saṃjñākarma). Because we find that the giving of names is already in usage (and not invented by us)^[8]. On account of the fact that movements rest only in one thing, the phenomenon that a thing can enter into any unoccupied space, would not lead us to infer the existence of ākāśa (ether). Akāśa has to be admitted as the hypothetical substance in which the quality of sound inheres, because, since sound (a quality) is not the characteristic of things which can be touched, there must be some substance of which it is a quality. And this substance is ākāśa. It is a substance and eternal like air. As being is one so ākāśa is one^[9].

In the second chapter of the second book Kaṇāda tries to prove that smell is a special characteristic of earth, heat of fire, and coldness of water. Time is defined as that which gives the notion of youth in the young, simultaneity, and quickness. It is one like being. Time is the cause of all non-eternal things, because the notion of time is absent in eternal things. Space supplies the notion that this is so far away from this or so much nearer to this. Like being it is one. One space appears to have diverse inter-space relations in connection with the motion of the sun. As a preliminary to discussing the problem whether sound is eternal or not, he discusses the notion of doubt, which arises when a thing is seen in a general way, but the particular features coming under it are not seen, either when these are only remembered, or when some such attribute is seen which resembles some other attribute seen before, or when a thing is seen in one way but appears in another, or when what is seen is not definitely grasped, whether rightly seen or not. He then discusses the question whether sound is eternal or non-eternal and gives his reasons to show that it is non-eternal, but concludes the discussion with a number of other reasons proving that it is eternal.

The first chapter of the third book is entirely devoted to the inference of the existence of soul from the fact that there must be some substance in which knowledge produced by the contact of the senses and their object inheres.

The knowledge of sense-objects (indriyārtha) is the reason by which we can infer the existence of something different from the senses and the objects which appear in connection with them.

The types of inferences referred to are

1. inference of non-existence of some things from the existence of some things,
2. of the existence of some things from the non-existence of some things,
3. of the existence of some things from the existence of others.

In all these cases inference is possible only when the two are known to be connected with each other (prasiddhipūrvakatvāt apadeśasya)^[10]. When such a connection does not exist or is doubtful, we have anapadeśa (fallacious middle) and sandigdha (doubtful middle);, thus, it is a horse because it has a horn, or it is a cow because it has a horn are examples of fallacious reason. The inference of soul from the cognition produced by the contact of soul, senses and objects is not fallacious in the above way. The inference of the existence of the soul in others may be made in a similar way in which the existence of one’s own soul is inferred^[11], i.e. by virtue of the existence of movement and cessation of movement. In the second chapter it is said that the fact that there is cognition only when there is contact between the self, the senses and the objects proves that there is manas (mind), and this manas is a substance and eternal, and this can be proved because there is no simultaneity of production of efforts and various kinds of cognition; it may also be inferred that this manas is one (with each person).

The soul may be inferred from inhalation, exhalation, twinkling of the eye, life, the movement of the mind, the sense-affections pleasure, pain, will, antipathy, and effort. That it is a substance and eternal can be proved after the manner of vāyu. An objector is supposed to say that since when I see a man I do not see his soul, the inference of the soul is of the type of sāmānycitodṛṣṭa inference, i.e., from the perceived signs of pleasure, pain, cognition to infer an unknown entity to which they belong, but that this was the self could not be affirmed. So the existence of soul has to be admitted on the strength of the scriptures. But the Vaiśeṣika reply is that since there is nothing else but self to which the expression “I” may be applied, there is no need of falling back on the scriptures for the existence of the soul. But then it is said that if the self is directly perceived in such experiences as “I am Yajñadatta” or “I am Devadatta,” what is the good of turning to inference? The reply to this is that inference lending its aid to the same existence only strengthens the conviction. When we say that Devadatta goes or Yajñadatta goes, there comes the doubt whether by Devadatta or Yajñadatta the body alone is meant; but the doubt is removed when we think that the notion of “I” refers to the self and not to anything else. As there is no difference regarding the production of pleasure, pain, and cognition, the soul is one in all. But yet it is many by special limitations as individuals and this is also proved on the strength of the scriptures^[12].

In the first chapter of the fourth book it is said that that which is existent, but yet has no cause, should be considered eternal (nityo). It can be inferred by its effect, for the effect can only take place because of the cause. When we speak of anything as non-eternal, it is only a negation of the eternal, so that also proves that there is something eternal. The non-eternal is ignorance (avidyā)^[13]. Colour is visible in a thing which is great (mahat) and compounded. Air (vāyu) is not perceived to have colour, though it is great and made up of parts, because it has not the actuality of colour (rūpasamskūra —i.e. in air there is only colour in its unmanifested form) in it Colour is thus visible only when there is colour with special qualifications and conditions^[14]. In this way the cognition of taste, smell, and touch is also explained. Number,measure, separateness,contact, and disjoining, the quality of belonging to a higher or lower class, action, all these as they abide in things possessing colour are visible to the eye. The number etc. of those which have no colour are not perceived by the eye. But the notion of being and also of genus of quality (guṇatva) are perceived by all the senses (just as colour, taste, smell, touch, and sound are perceived by one sense, cognition, pleasure, pain, etc. by the manas and number etc. by the visual and the tactile sense)^[15].

In the second chapter of the fourth book it is said that the earth, etc. exist in three forms, body, sense, and objects. There cannot be any compounding of the five elements or even of the three, but the atoms of different elements may combine when one of them acts as the central radicle (upaṣṭambhaka). Bodies are of two kinds, those produced from ovaries and those which are otherwise produced by the combination of the atoms in accordance with special kinds of dharma. All combinations of atoms are due to special kinds of dharmas. Such super-mundane bodies are to be admitted for explaining the fact that things must have been given names by beings having such super-mundane bodies, and also on account of the authority of the Vedas.

In the first chapter of the fifth book action (karma) is discussed. Taking the example of threshing the corn, it is said that the movement of the hand is due to its contact with the soul in a state of effort, and the movement of the flail is due to its contact with the hand. But in the case of the uprising of the flail in the threshing pot due to impact the movement is not due to contact with the hands, and so the uplifting of the hand in touch with the flail is not due to its contact with the soul; for it is due to the impact of the flail. On account of heaviness (gurutva) the flail will fall when not held by the hand. Things may have an upward or side motion by specially directed motions (nodanaviśeṣa) which are generated by special kinds of efforts. Even without effort the body may move during sleep. The movement of needles towards magnets is due to an unknown cause (adṛṣṭakūranaka). The arrow first acquires motion by specially directed movement, and then on account of its inertia (vegasaṃskāra) keeps on moving and when that ceases it falls down through heaviness.

The second chapter abounds with extremely crude explanations of certain physical phenomena which have no philosophical importance. All the special phenomena of nature are explained as being due to unknown cause (adrstakāritam) and no explanation is given as to the nature of this unknown (adṛṣṭa). It is however said that with the absence of adṛṣṭa there is no contact of body with soul, and thus there is no rebirth, and therefore mokṣa (salvation); pleasure and pain are due to contact of the self, manas, senses and objects. Yoga is that in which the mind is in contact with the self alone, by which the former becomes steady and there is no pain in the body. Time, space, ākāśa are regarded as inactive.

The whole of the sixth book is devoted to showing that gifts are made to proper persons not through sympathy but on account of the injunction of the scriptures, the enumeration of certain Vedic performances, which brings in adṛṣṭa, purification and impurities of things, how passions are often generated by adṛṣṭa, how dharma and adharma lead to birth and death and how mokṣa takes place as a result of the work of the soul.

In the seventh book it is said that the qualities in eternal things are eternal and in non-eternal things non-eternal. The change of qualities produced by heat in earth has its beginning in the cause (the atoms). Atomic size is invisible while great size is visible. Visibility is due to a thing’s being made up of many causes^[16], but the atom is therefore different from those that have great size. The same thing may be called great and small relatively at the same time. In accordance with aṇutva (atomic) and mahattva (great) there are also the notions of small and big. The eternal size of parimaṇḍala (round) belongs to the atoms. Akāśa and ātman are called mahān or paramamahān (the supremely great or all-pervasive); since manas is not of the great measure it is of atomic size. Space and time are also considered as being of the measure “supremely great” (paramamahat). Atomic size (parimaṇḍala) belonging to the atoms and the mind (manas) and the supremely great size belonging to space, time, soul and ether (ākāśa) are regarded as eternal.

In the second chapter of the seventh book it is said that unity and separateness are to be admitted as entities distinct from other qualities. There is no number in movement and quality; the appearance of number in them is false. Cause and effect are neither one, nor have they distinctive separateness (ekapṛthaktva). The notion of unity is the cause of the notion of duality, etc. Contact may be due to the action of one or two things, or the effect of another contact and so is disjoining. There is neither contact nor disjoining in cause and effect since they do not exist independently (yuiasiddhyabhāvāt). In the eighth book it is said that soul and manas are not perceptible, and that in the apprehension of qualities, action, generality, and particularity perception is due to their contact with the thing.

Earth is the cause of perception of smell, and water, fire, and air are the cause of taste, colour and touch^[17]. In the ninth book negation is described; non-existence (asat) is defined as that to which neither action nor quality can be attributed. Even existent things may become non-existent and that which is existent in one way may be non-existent in another; but there is another kind of non-existence which is different from the above kinds of existence and non-existence^[18]. All negation can be directly perceived through the help of the memory which keeps before the mind the thing to which the negation applies. Allusion is also made in this connection to the special perceptual powers of the yogins (sages attaining mystical powers through Yoga practices).

In the second chapter the nature of hetu (reason) or the middle term is described. It is said that anything connected with any other thing, as effect, cause, as in contact, or as contrary or as inseparably connected, will serve as liṅga (reason). The main point is the notion “this is associated with this,” or “these two are related as cause and effect,” and since this may also be produced through premisses, there may be a formal syllogism from propositions fulfilling the above condition. Verbal cognition comes without inference. False knowledge (avidyā) is due to the defect of the senses or non-observation and mal-observation due to wrong expectant impressions. The opposite of this is true knowledge (vidyā). In the tenth it is said that pleasure and pain are not cognitions, since they are not related to doubt and certainty.

A dravya may be caused by the inhering of the effect in it, for because of its contact with another thing the effect is produced. Karma (motion) is also a cause since it inheres in the cause. Contact is also a cause since it inheres in the cause. A contact which inheres in the cause of the cause and thereby helps the production of the effect is also a cause. The special quality of the heat of fire is also a cause.

Works according to the injunctions of the scriptures since they have no visible effect are the cause of prosperity, and because the Vedas direct them, they have validity.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Upaskāra notes that viśesa here refers to the ultimate differences of things and not to species. A special doctrine of this system is this, that each of the indivisible atoms of even the same element has specific features of difference.

[2]:

Here the well known qualities of heaviness (gurutva), liquidity (dravatva), oiliness (sneha), elasticity (saṃskāra), merit (dharma), and demerit (adharma) have been altogether omitted. These are all counted in later Vaiśesika commentaries and compendiums. It must be noted that “guna” in Vaiśesika means qualities and not subtle reals or substances as in Sāṃkhya-Yoga. Guna in Vaiśesika would be akin to what Yoga would call dharma.

[3]:

It is only when the kārya ceases that dravya is produced. See Upaskāra I. i. 22.

[4]:

If karma is related to more than one thing, then with the movement of one we should have felt that two or more things were moving.

[5]:

It must be noted that “karma” in this sense is quite different from the more extensive use of karma as meritorious or vicious action which is the cause of rebirth.

[6]:

It should be noted that mercury is not mentioned. This is important for mercury was known at a time later than Caraka.

[7]:

Substance is that which possesses quality and action. It should be noted that the word “adravyatvena” in ii. i. 13 has been interpreted by me as “adravyavattvena.”

[8]:

I have differed from Upaskāra in interpreting “saṃjñākarma” in II. i. 18, 19 as a genitive compound while Upaskāra makes it a dvandva compound. Upaskāra’s interpretation seems to be far-fetched. He wants to twist it into an argument for the existence of (iod.

[9]:

This interpretation is according to Śaṅkara Miśra’s Upaskāra.

 

[10]:

In connection with this there is a short reference to the methods of fallacy in which Gautama’s terminology does not appear. There is no generalised statement, but specific types of inference are only pointed out as the basis.

[11]:

The forms of inference used show that Kanāda was probably not aware of Gautama’s terminology.

[12]:

I have differed here from the meaning given in Upaskāra. I think the three sūtras “Sukhaduḥkhajñānaniṣpattyaviśeṣādekātmyam,” “vyavasthāto nānā” and “śastrasāmarthyāt ca” originally meant that the self was one, though for the sake of many limitations, and also because of the need of the performance of acts enjoined by the scriptures, they are regarded as many.

[13]:

I have differed here also in my meaning from the Upaskāra , which regards this sūtra “ avidyā" to mean that we do not know of any reasons which lead to the non-eternality of the atoms.

[14]:

This is what is meant in the later distinctions of udbhūtarūpavattva and anud-bhūtarūpavattva. The word samskāra in Vaiśesika has many senses. It means inertia, elasticity, collection (samavāya), production (udbhava) and not being overcome (anabhibhava). For the last three senses see Upaskāra IV. i. 7.

[15]:

This portion has been taken from the Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra on the Vaiśeṣika sūtras of Kanāda. It must be noted here that the notion of number according to Vaiśesika is due to mental relativity or oscillation (apekṣābuddkijanya). But this mental relativity can only start when the thing having number is either seen or touched ; and it is in this sense that notion of number is said to depend on the visual or the tactual sense.

[16]:

I have differed from the Upaskāra in the interpretation of this sūtra.

[17]:

Upaskāra here explains that it is intended that the senses are produced by those specific elements, but this cannot be found in the sūtras.

[18]:

In the previous three kinds of non-existence, prāgabhāva (negation before production), dhvaṃsābhāva (negation after destruction), and anyonyābhāva (mutual negation of each other in each other), have been described. The fourth one is sāmānyābhāva (general negation).