Part 4 - Role of God and Adṛṣṭa in the evolutionary process

In the Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika cosmogony god play the pivotal role. Sāṃkhya asserts that the teleology of prakṛti is sufficient to explain all order and arrangement of the cosmos. The Mīmāṃsakas, the Cārvākas, the Buddhists and the Jains all deny the existence of god. But Nyāya believes that Īśvara has fashioned this Universe by his will out of the everlasting or ever-existing atoms. Every effect must have its cause. The very structural composition of the Universe justifies its character as an effect. Thus this world with all its order and arrangement must also be due to the agency of some cause, and this cause is Īśvara. This world is not momentary as the Buddhists suppose, but is permanent as atom. It is also an effect so far as it is a collocation of atoms and is made up of parts like all other individual objects (e.g. jug etc). But the cause of this effect cannot be perceived by the worldly people because Īśvara has no visible body. It is to be mentioned here that the world is not a fortuitous combination of atoms, governed by the mechanical law of causality. Rather, it is governed by the law of causality subordinated to the law of karma.

God is the distinct soul endowed with certain qualities. He is the sole cause of the Universe.^[1] Moreover, man performs acts which are endowed with fruits given by god and thus he is the sole cause of the fruits of them.^[2] God is the moral guide of the individual souls and the dispenser of the fruits of their actions. He lays down moral injunctions and prohibitions for the good of mankind and favors their free actions with their fruits.^[3] As mentioned earlier in the scheme of cosmogony, god transcends the atoms, time, space and ether which are co-eternal with him. The body or Īśvara is said to be constituted by atoms. Atoms are eternal, so the body of Īśvara or Īśvara himself also becomes eternal.^[4] Śaṃkarācārya in his Śārīrakabhāṣya also says, ‘atoms may not be destroyed or disintegrated but may be transformed into a prior non-atomic condition which is the condition of the being of Brahman.’^[5] God is the efficient cause of the world^[6], atoms are its material cause^[7] and the combination of atoms is the noninherent cause. God creates the world out of atoms in time and space by conjoining them with one another and destroys it by disjoining them from one another. He creates it through his immediate knowledge of the atoms and the soul’s merits and demerits. He creates motion in them by his will and conjoins them and produces dyads and all other gross physical objects. The variety of the world is due to the variety of merits and demerits of the finite souls. Adṛṣṭa or moral deserts of the jīvas is very significant in this respect as the material elements which cannot work by themselves work only when God activates and regulates them in accordance with the adṛṣṭa or moral deserts of the jīvas. It is said that adṛṣṭa not only determines the condition, but also guides the actions of men and imparts the motions under which the body and its members perform their functions.^[8] Vātsāyana regards god as a particular soul endowed with merit, knowledge, intuition, sovereignty and has eight kinds of supernatural powers. Uddyotakara invests god with eternal knowledge, number, magnitude, distinctness, conjunction and disjunction etc. Both of Uddyotakara and Jayanta Bhatta emphasizes on the eternity of god’s lordship, qualities and existence. Thus Jayanta Bhatta recognizes five qualities of god viz. knowledge, happiness, desire, volition and merit which are also eternal.^[9] On the cosmological and moral background, the existence of a supernatural power i.e. god is accepted in the Nyāya Philosophy.

The following arguments are furnished in the context of the existence of God in the Nyāya Philosophy.^[10]

1. The first cosmological argument is that god is the efficient cause of the Universe who directs the unconscious atoms, which are its material cause and brings about their conjunction which is its noninherent cause. Without him the creation process cannot be completed.

2. God supervises the unconscious and perceptible physical elements and adjusts the material world to have pleasures and miseries of the individual soul. This is a blend of the cosmological argument with the moral argument.

3. Merits and demerits which are instruments cannot be supervised by the individual souls because they are unconscious of them. So there is god who supervises the merits and demerits because he is conscious of the moral deserts and conjoins them with adequate enjoyments and sufferings of the individuals. This is the moral argument.

4. The unconscious atoms and unpredictable merits and demerits should be supervised by an intelligent agent i.e. god who creates the world of manifold objects in accordance with their merits and demerits for their enjoyments and sufferings of the individuals. This is a blend of the cosmological argument with the moral argument.

These are some of the arguments established by the Naiyāyikas to prove the existence of god who is the cause of this Universe.^[11] Udayana also gives eight reasons to prove the existence of god.^[12] Thus it is seen that much more importance is given on the existence and role of god while elaborating the aspect of cosmogony in the Nyāya philosophy.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

īśvaraḥ kāraṇaṃ puruṣakarmaphalyadarśanāt, Ibid, IV.1.19

[2]:

puruṣo’yaṃ….dṛṣṭam tasmādīśvaraḥ kāraṇamiti, Nyāyavārtika, IV.1.19

[3]:

Nyāya-bhāṣya, Nyāyasūtravṛtti, Nyāyavārtika, IV.1.21

[4]:

ācāryamatānuyāyinastu neśvarasyātiriktaśarīrasiddhiḥ parmāṇunāmeva tacchaśarīratvopagamāt, Dinakarītīkā, vide Bhāṣāpariccheda, kārikā 1.

[5]:

Brahmasūtra Śāṅkara-bhāṣya, II.2.15

[6]:

tatkāritatvādityevaṃ bruvatā nimittakāraṇamīśvara…bhavati, Nyāyavārtika, IV.1.21

[7]:

uktam pṛthivyādi paramasukṣam…miti, Ibid, IV.1.21

[8]:

adṛṣṭakṛṣṭaraiva śarīrendriyādibhistadbhogajananāt, cf.Doctrines of Hindu Philosophy, p.71

[9]:

Nyāyamañjarī, IV.1.21

[10]:

Nyāyavārtika IV.1.21

[11]:

Nyāyasūtra IV.1.19

[12]:

Nāyakusumāñjalī V.1