Vaisheshika-sutra with Commentary
by Nandalal Sinha | 1923 | 149,770 words | ISBN-13: 9789332869165
The Vaisheshika-sutra 10.2.1, 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 1 (‘substance is the only combinative cause’) contained in Chapter 2—Of Other Forms of Cognition—of Book X (of the differences of the attributes of the soul and of the threefold causes).
Sūtra 10.2.1 (Substance is the only combinative cause)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 10.2.1:
कारणमिति द्रव्ये कार्यसमवायात् ॥ १०.२.१ ॥
kāraṇamiti dravye kāryasamavāyāt || 10.2.1 ||
kāraṇaṃ—cause; iti—such; dravye—in substance; kārya-samavāyāt—from the combination of effect.
1. “(It is the combinative) cause”—such (intuition and usage), with regard to Substance, (arise) from the combination of effect (in it).
Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:
(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)
As a collateral topic, the author now commences a special discrimination of the three causes:
[Read sūtra 10.2.1 above]
‘Kāraṇaṃ,’ that is, that it is the combinative cause; ‘iti,’ such intuition and usage, are to be observed, ‘dravye,’ with regard to substance. Why so? He gives the reply: ‘kārya-samavāyāt,’ because effect, viz., substance, attribute, and action, combine in it alone.—1.
Commentary: The Vivṛti of Jayanārāyaṇa:
(English extracts of Jayanārāyaṇa Tarkapañcānana’s Vivṛti or ‘gloss’ called the Kaṇādasūtravivṛti from the 17th century)
* * * * The definition of a cause in general is that causality consists in constant antecedence, there existing at the same time voidness of failure to produce the effect (that is to say, in Mill’s phraseology, causality consists in invariable and unconditional antecedence). There are three kinds of causes, according to their division into the combinative or material, non-combinative or formal, and instrumental or efficient. * * * *