Vaisheshika-sutra with Commentary
by Nandalal Sinha | 1923 | 149,770 words | ISBN-13: 9789332869165
The Vaisheshika-sutra 10.2.2, 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 2 (‘substance is efficient cause also’) 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 10.2.2 (Substance is efficient cause also)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 10.2.2:
संयोगाद्वा ॥ १०.२.२ ॥
saṃyogādvā || 10.2.2 ||
saṃyogat—from conjunction; vā—or, and.
2. And, through conjunction, (Substance becomes the efficient or conditional cause also).
Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:
(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)
It may be asked: Do then substances possess only combinative causality?
So he says:
[Read sūtra 10.2.2 above]
As combinative causality, so also efficient causality, belongs to the threads, in the production of a piece of cloth. Inasmuch as conjunction of the shuttle and the threads is also a cause of the cloth, the shuttle and the thread, are, mediately through that conjunction, also efficient cause of the cloth. The word ‘vā’ is used in a collective sense, inasmuch as, though the thread possesses combinative causality towards the conjunction of the shuttle and the thread, yet it possesses efficient causality towards the cloth, mediately through such conjunction.—2.
Commentary: The Vivṛti of Jayanārāyaṇa:
(English extracts of Jayanārāyaṇa Tarkapañcānana’s Vivṛti or ‘gloss’ called the Kaṇādasūtravivṛti from the 17th century)
He says that combinative causality belongs to substances, not only because effects combine in them, but also because they are fields for the operation of non-combinative causes.
‘Saṃyogāt’ means because they are the support or substratum wherein takes place conjunction which is the non-combinative cause. * *