Pākaja-guṇa

The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas maintain that the qualities rūpa, rasa, gandha and sparśa are pākaja i.e., products of heat and as such non-eternal in case of earth. In other substances these are both eternal and non-eternal as they are not products.^[1] Annaṃbhaṭṭa says that pāka means conjunction with fire or heat. By this conjunction, colour etc. are changed and new colour etc. are produced. This change of colour, taste, Smell, and touch through the conjunction of fire is found in earth alone. Colour etc. do not change in water etc. even if it is heated in a hundred ways.

Nyāyavodhinī defines pāka as found thus:

vijātīyatejaḥ saṃyogaḥ.^[2]

This means conjunction of external heat which brings about a change of colour etc. It is of different kinds according to the effects. Sometimes only clour is changed as in the case of baked jar. In some cases colour, smell and taste are changed as in an artificially ripened mango. Here the word vijātīya is given to exclude the change in metals by heat, as metals are themselves tejas, heat is their sajātīya.

There is a sharp distinction between the Naiyāyikas and the Vaiśeṣikas regarding the process of change of colour etc. The Vaiśeṣikas are called pīlupākavādins, while the Naiyāyikas are piṭharapākavādins. The Vaiśeṣikas are so called because they maintain that change of colour etc. through the action of fire takes place only in atoms. They maintain that idea is as follows: Change through the action of fire is not possible in the parts held together by an aggregate. With the contact of fire the aggregate is destroyed and changed take place in disengaged atoms. Again by the conjunction of the atoms that have been changed by the action of fire, the final aggregate is formed in the order of dyads etc.

Since fire is exceeding swift, the former aggregation is destroyed and a new aggregation produced in the twinkling of an eye.^[3]

“When a jar is baked, the old black jar is according to Vaiśeṣikas, destroyed, and its several compounds of binaries etc. are also destroyed. The action of the fire produces the red colour in separate atoms, which are then joined by the same action of fire into new compounds and eventually produce a new red jar. This complicated process of dissolution and reconstruction of the jar is necessary to allow all the atom in the jar to be baked, for if the jar remained intact, the fire cannot penetrate it and bake the atoms in the interior.”^[4]

The Naiyāyikas on the other hand holds that changed through the action of fire can take place even in aggregates like dyad etc. In their view the aggregates are porous hence fire can penetrate them and thus can bring about changed in all parts of an aggregate Indian view it is cumbrous to assume an infinite number of aggregates being destroyed and successively produce.^[5] Whatever may be the process of pāka. The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas accept pākaja-guṇa in order to account for variety in things produced from the same kind of earthly atoms.^[6]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

rūpādicatuṣṭayaṃ pṛthivyāṃ pākajamanityaṃ ca anyatra apākajaṃ nityamanityam ca. Tarkasaṃgraha, p. 17

[2]:

Nyāyavodhinī on Tarkasaṃgraha, p. 17

[3]:

āmanikṣipte ghaṭe paramāṇuṣu rūpāntarotpattou śyāmaghaṭanāśe punardvyaṇukādikrameṇa raktaghaṭotpattiḥ Dīpikā on Tarkasaṃgraha, p. 17; Nyāyasiddhāntamuktāvalī, p.183

[4]:

Tarkasaṃgraha, p. 157

[5]:

Kārikāvalī–Nyāyasiddhāntamuktāvalī, p.196

[6]:

ata eva pārthivaparamāṇunāmekajātīyatve’pi pākamahimnā vijātīyadravyāntarānubhavaḥ. Nyāyavodhinī on Tarkasaṃgraha, p. 17 80. ekādivyavahārahetuḥ saṃkhyā. Vaiśeṣikadarśanam with Praśastapādabhāṣya, p. 74