Sūtra 10.1.6 (Above continued: Causes of Pleasure and Pain)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 10.1.6:

एकार्थसमवायि कारणान्तरेषु दृष्टत्वात् ॥ १०.१.६ ॥

ekārthasamavāyi kāraṇāntareṣu dṛṣṭatvāt || 10.1.6 ||

eka-artha-samavāyi-kāraṇa-antareṣu—there existing other causes co-inherent in one and the same object; dṛṣṭatvāt—from the being observed; Because they are observed.

6. (Pleasure and Pain are not form of cognition), because they are observed, when there exist other causes co-inherent in one and the same object, (i.e., the soul).

Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:

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

He mentions another differentiating characteristic.

[Read sūtra 10.1.6 above]

“Of pleasure and pain”—such is the complement (of the aphorism). In relation to pleasure, uncommon or specific causes co-inherent in one and the same object are dharma or merit, attachment to, or attraction for, pleasure, desire for the cause of pleasure, volition or striving to secure the material (cause) of pleasure, and cognition of garlands, sandle-paste, etc.; while in relation to pain, they are adharma or demerit, and cognition of thorns and other undesirable object. The meaning is that (pleasure and pain differ from cognition), inasmuch as they are observed on the co-inherence of these causes in one and the samel object. But cognition which is non-discriminative, does not at all stand in need of an uncommon cause co-inherent in the same object (with it). Discriminative cognition, of course, depends upon a cognition of predication or attribution (or judgment), but this is not another cause, that is, a cause heterogeneous to the cause of the cognition itself. Conjunction of the mind, as being a cause common (to pleasure and pain with cognition), does not require mention. Though reminiscence requires saṃskāra, impression or reproductiveness, as its specific or uncommon cause, yet the difference therefrom is quite obvious, as it is for this reason that the difference (of pleasure and pain) has been investigated with reference only to cognition or perceptual experience. Although in inferential cognition there is dependence upon the recollection of pervasion or universal concomitance, the cognition that the mark is a property of the minor term, etc., yet it is thrown overboard by the very word ‘antara,’ other, (in the aphorism). The probative sense (of the aphorism) is, therefore, that pleasure and pain are different from cognition, inasmuch as they are the products of uncommon or particular causes, of their own kind, co-existing in the same substratum with them, as is the case with reminiscence, and with the first sound (in a series of sounds).—6.