Sūtra 8.2.6 (Similarly the Senses of Taste, Colour and Touch...)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 8.2.6:

तथापस्तेजो वायुश्च रसरूपस्पर्शाविशेषात् ॥ ८.२.६ ॥

tathāpastejo vāyuśca rasarūpasparśāviśeṣāt || 8.2.6 ||

tathā—in like manner; āpaḥ—waters; tejaḥ—fire; vāyuḥ—air; ca—and; rasa-rūpa-sparśa-aviśeṣāt—because of the non-difference of taste, colour and touch.

6. In like manner, Water, Fire and Air (are the material causes of the sense-organs of Taste, Colour and Touch), inasmuch as there is no difference in the Taste, Colour and Touch (which they respectively possess, from what they respectively apprehend).

Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:

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

[Full title: Similarly the Senses of Taste, Colour and Touch are respectively constituted by the Elements of Water, Fire and Air]

He extends the argument to the other senses:

[Read sūtra 8.2.6 above]

‘The material causes of the organs of the tongue, the eye, and the skin’—this is the complement of the aphorism. Water, etc., are then respectively the material causes of the tongue, etc., inasmuch as the latter respectively apprehend the objects with which they are uniformly related. Here too it is ‘bhūyastvaṃ,’ ‘predominance,’ which governs the uniformity (that the characteristics of being the revealer of taste, etc., belong respectively to the tongue, etc.) It has been declared that it is the rule or uniformity that the tongue, etc., possess particular attributes of the same kind as are apprehensible by them, that is the proof of the possession of taste, etc., by the tongue, etc. Likewise the organ of hearing is only a portion or division of Ether confined within the hollow of the ear and favourably influenced by particular adṛṣṭa or destiny.—6.

Here ends the second chapter of the eighth book in the Commentary of Śaṅkara upon the Vaiśeṣika Aphorisms.