Sūtra 3.1.6 (The body or the senses are not the seat of perception, continued)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 3.1.6:

अज्ञानाच्च ॥ ३.१.६ ॥

ajñānācca || 3.1.6 ||

ajñānāt—because it is not known; ca—and.

6. And because it is not known (that any minute degree of consciousness exists in the water-pot, etc).

Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:

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

In anticipation of the further rejoinder that consciousness! may in reality exist, in an imperceptible degree, in the water-pot, etc., also, he says:

[Read sūtra 3.1.6 above]

The meaning is that there is no consciousness in the water-jar, etc., inasmuch as it is not known by any means of knowledge. If you admit that which is beyond the range of all means of knowledge, then you will have to admit also that a hare has horns, and so on. For, by no kind of evidence, is it known that consciousness exists in the water-jar, etc—6.

Commentary: The Vivṛti of Jayanārāyaṇa:

(English extracts of Jayanārāyaṇa Tarkapañcānana’s Vivṛti or ‘gloss’ called the Kaṇādasūtravivṛti from the 17th century)

It is more proper to conceive some one other substance as the seat of consciousness than to imagine a plurality of consciousness in various portions of matter. This is the import.

On the theory that consciousness resides in the body, recollection of what is experienced in infancy, will be impossible in youth, etc, because of the non-existence of that which had the experience, since the destruction of the infant-body must be observed by the destruction of its material. Similarly, there would be no activity at sucking the breasts on the part of a child just born, because of the impossibility at that stage of the understanding that this is the means of attaining the desirable which is the cause of activity. According to the advocate of the existence of a separate conscious being, the activity explained by the possibility of reminiscence due to the impression produced by the understanding in the previous birth that this is the means of attaining the desirable. Recollection of other experiences in the previous birth does not take place owing the absence of appropriate external stimuli.

Commentary: The Bhāṣya of Candrakānta:

(English translation of Candrakānta Tarkālaṅkāra’s Bhāṣya called the Vaiśeṣikabhāṣya from the 19th century)

Candrakānta reads III.i.5 and 6 as one aphorism, and explains it in the sense that as cognition is found within one effect, e.g., the body, and is not found within another effect, e.g., a jar, therefore, it follows that there can be no cognition in their combinative causes (which must be same in both cases).