Vaisheshika-sutra with Commentary
by Nandalal Sinha | 1923 | 149,770 words | ISBN-13: 9789332869165
The Vaisheshika-sutra 7.1.9, 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 9 (‘largeness or magnitude how produced’) contained in Chapter 1—Of Colour, Taste, Smell, and Touch, and Magnitude—of Book VII (of the examination of attributes and of combination).
Sūtra 7.1.9 (Largeness or magnitude how produced)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 7.1.9:
कारण बहुत्वाच्च ॥ ७.१.९ ॥
kāraṇa bahutvācca || 7.1.9 ||
kāraṇa-vahutvāt—from a multiplicity of causes; ca—also.
9. Largeness or Magnitude is produced, from a multiplicity of causes also.
Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:
(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)
He now enumerates the causes of measure or extension.
[Read sūtra 7.1.9 above]
The word ‘ca’ implies the addition of magnitude and pracaya i.e., loose conjunction among parts. “Measure or extension is produced”—this is the complement of the aphorism. Among these, multiplicity of causes alone produces largeness or magnitude and length in tertiary atomic aggregates, since magnitude and accretion do not exist in their causes. That multiplicity is produced by the relative understanding of God, and the apprehension of particular adṛṣṭa or destinies, determines this plurality of objects in such relative understanding. Likewise, it will be stated hereafter, duality existing in two atoms is productive of measure or extension in a binary atomic aggregate. In a piece of cloth, originated by two non-coalescent threads, it is magnitude alone which is the non-combinative cause, since multiplicity and coalescence do not exist there. Where again, a ball of cotton, in this case, inasmuch as an increase of measure or extension is observed, therefore accretion is the cause, since multiplicity does not exist, and since magnitude though existing, is not a condition or occasion for increase of measure or extension. Such being the case, were magnitude cause here, there would be no defect in the argument, for it has been said, “By two, by one, or by all.”
Pracaya, coalescence or accretion, is originative conjunction, and is defined as conjunction in an object of some of its constituent parts towards itself, in which object some of the constituent parts were not in conjunction towards itself. And this conjunction of constituent parts, it has been observed, is dependent upon a loose conjunction among their own constituent parts, is productive of measure or extension, and is involved in the origination of Attributes and Actions.—9.