Vaisheshika-sutra with Commentary
by Nandalal Sinha | 1923 | 149,770 words | ISBN-13: 9789332869165
The Vaisheshika-sutra 7.1.17, 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 7 (‘length and shortness do not exist in length and shortness’) contained in Chapter 1—Of Colour, Taste, Smell, and Touch, and Magnitude—of Book VII (of the examination of attributes and of combination).
Sūtra 7.1.17 (Length and shortness do not exist in length and shortness)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 7.1.17:
एतेन दीर्घत्व ह्रस्वत्वे व्याख्याते ॥ ७.१.१७ ॥
etena dīrghatva hrasvatve vyākhyāte || 7.1.17 ||
etena—hereby; dirghatva-hrasvatve—length and shortness; vyākhyāte—explained.
17. Hereby are explained Length and Shortness.
Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:
(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)
He extends the process of minuteness and magnitude to length and shortness.
[Read sūtra 7.1.17 above]
Length, and shortness also are not possessed of length and shortness, Whatever is productive of magnitude, the same is productive of length; whatever is productive of minuteness, the same is productive of shortness. If it be asked, the cause being the same, how there can be this difference in the effect, the reply is that it is proved or explained, like attributes produced by burning, by the difference of antecedent non-existence. Wherever there is minuteness, there is shortness; where there is eternal minuteness, there is eternal shortness, etc. This is the meaning of the extension or analogy.—17