Vaisheshika-sutra with Commentary

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

The Vaisheshika-sutra 5.2.26, 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 (‘time is an efficient cause’) contained in Chapter 2—Of Non-volitional Action—of Book V (of investigation of action).

Sūtra 5.2.26 (Time is an efficient cause)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 5.2.26:

कारणेन कालः ॥ ५.२.२६ ॥

kāraṇena kālaḥ || 5.2.26 ||

kāraṇena—by cause, i; e., by way of efficient causality. kālaḥ—Time.

26. By way of (efficient) causality, (the reference of action to Time as its seats, being explained), Time (is explained to be inactive, so far as combinative causality is concerned).

Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:

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

With the same object as already stated, he says:

[Read sūtra 5.2.26 above]

The syntactical connection of the aphorism is with “explained to be inactive,”—corresponding words in the preceding aphorism, with necessary changes. The use of ‘Kāraṇena,’ instead of ‘nimittakār aṇena/ is an instace of denoting an object principally as an existence, (i.e., without qualification). The meaning, therefore, is that Time, being the efficient cause, is only the seat of action, but is not its combinative cause.—26.

Here ends the second chapter of the fifth book in the Commentary of Śaṅkara upon the Visśeṣika Aphorisms.

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