Vaisheshika-sutra with Commentary
by Nandalal Sinha | 1923 | 149,770 words | ISBN-13: 9789332869165
The Vaisheshika-sutra 3.2.12, 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 2 (‘counter-objection stated and answered’) contained in Chapter 2—Of the Inference of Soul and Mind—of Book III (of soul and mind).
Sūtra 3.2.12 (Counter-objection stated and answered)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 3.2.12:
देवदत्तो गच्छति यज्ञदत्तो गच्छतीत्युपचाराच्छरीरे प्रत्ययः ॥ ३.२.१२ ॥
devadatto gacchati yajñadatto gacchatītyupacārāccharīre pratyayaḥ || 3.2.12 ||
devadattaḥ—Devadatta; gacchati—goes; yajñadattaḥ—Yajñadatta; gacchati—goes; iti—such; These. upacārāt—by transference; śarīre—in the body; pratyayaḥ—intntition; Belief.
12. ‘Devadatta goes,’ ‘Yajñadatta goes,’—in these cases, the belief (that their respective bodies go) is due to transference.
Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:
(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)
“Well,” it may be objected, “if the intuition, ‘I am Yajñadatta’ refers to the Soul, then the appearance (of the notion Yajñadatta) as co-existing in the same substratum with Going, as in ‘Yajñadatta goes,’ is impossible.” So he says:
[Read sūtra 3.2.12 above]
For there are such intuitions as “I am fair,” “I am stout,” and there is also such differential intuition as “My body.” Now, in “Devadatta goes,” the perception of co-existence with motion, and the use of language to express it, are topical, whereas the intuition “my” is real as carrying its own meaning. Although the property of being Devadatta is a jdti, kind or genus, existing in the body whereby the use of language as Devadatta goes” is in the primary sense and the intuition is true in its own meaning, yet if the term Devadatta be applied to the Soul delimited by it, it is then to be understood as a transferred epithet.