INDIA AND MAXMULLER

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In 1899 Max Müller, the distinguished, philosopher, linguist and scholar wrote

"The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy", offering a clear, simply presented

summary of the doctrine of the six Viewpoints based on their classic texts. His

treatment of Vaisheshika is brief. This is not surprising, since historically

the Vaisheshika system has been united for much of its history with the Nyaaya

Viewpoint. ".. It begins with the usual promise of teaching something from

which springs elevation or the summum bonum, and that something KaNaada calls

Dharma or merit. From a particular kind of merit springs, according to KaNaada,

true knowledge of certain Padarthas, or categories, and from this once more the

summum bonum. These categories . embrace the whole realm of knowledge, and are:

(I) substance, Dravya; (2) quality, GuNa; (3) action, Karman; (4) genus or

community, Saamaanya, or what constitutes a genus; (5) species or

particularity, Visheshha, or what constitutes an individual; (6) inhesion or

inseparability, Samavaaya; (7) according to some, privation or negation,

Abhaava. These are to be considered by means of their mutual similarities and

dissimilarities, that is, by showing how they differ and how far they agree.

Here we have, indeed, what comes much nearer to Aristotle's categories than

Gotama's Padarthas. These categories or predicaments were believed to contain

an enumeration of all things capable of being named, i. e. of being known. If

the number of Aristotle's categories was controverted, no wonder that those of

KaNaada should have met with the same fate. It has always been a moot point

whether Abhaava, non-existence, deserves a place among them, while some

philosophers were anxious to add two more, namely, Skakti, potentia, and

Sadrshya, similitude.SUBSTANCESI. The substances, according to the Vaiseshikas,

are: a.. (I) earth, Prthivi; b.. (2) water, Apah; c.. (3) light, Tejas;

d.. (4) air, Vayu; e.. (5) ether, Aakaasha; f.. (6) time, Kala; g.. (7)

space, Dish; h.. (8) self, Aatman; i.. (9) mind, Manas. These substances

cannot exist without qualities, as little as qualities can exist without

substance. 'I'he four at the head of the list are either eternal or

non-eternal, and exist either in the form of atoms (Anus) or as material

bodies. The non-eternal substances again exist as either inorganic, organic, or

as organs of sense. The impulse given to the atoms comes from God, and in that

restricted sense the Vaiseshika has to be accepted as theistic. God is Aatman

in its highest forms In its lower it is the individual soul. The former is one,

and one only, the latter are innumerable.QUALITIESII. The principal qualities of

these substances are: a.. ( I ) colour, Ruupa, in earth, water, and light;

b.. (2) taste, Rasa, in earth and water; c.. (3) smell, Gandha, in earth;

d.. (4) touch, Sparsha, in earth, water, light, and air; e.. (5) number,

SaaMkhya, by which we perceive one or many; f.. (6) extension or quantity,

ParimaaNa; g.. (7) individuality or severalty, Prthaktva; h.. (8)

conjunction, Samyoga; i.. (9) disjunction, Viyoga; j.. ( 10) priority,

Paratva; k.. ( 11) posteriority, Aparatva; a.. [Here follow in some lists

as 11 to 15, gravity, fluidity, viscidity, and sound. The remaining Gunas are

said to be perceptible by the mental organ only, not by the organs of sense.]

l.. (12) thought, Buddhi; m.. (13, 14) pleasure and pain, Sukha-duHkha; n..

(15-16) desire and aversion, Icchaa-dveshau; o.. (17) will, effort, Prayatna.

a.. [Here again some authorities add Dharma, virtue, and Adharma, vice,

Samskaara, faculty or disposition, and Bhaavana, imagination.] ACTIONSIII. The

principal actions affecting the substances are: a.. (I) throwing upwards,

Utkshepana; b.. (2) throwing downwards, Avakshepana (or Apa); c.. (3)

contracting, Akunchana; d.. (4) expanding, Utsarana (or Pras-); e.. (5)

going, Gamana. These actions or movements are sometimes identified with or

traced back to the Samskaaras, a word difficult to translate, and which has

been rendered by dispositions and instincts, as applied to either animate or

inanimate bodies. These Samskaaras have an important position both in the

SaaMkhya- and in the Bauddha philosophies. In the Tarkaditika, Samskaara is

rendered even by Jaati (jaatih samskaaratmika bhavati), i.e. nature or inborn

peculiarity; and in the Tarka-samgraha it is represented as threefold (Vegah,

Bhavana, and Sthitisthapakah).In the Suutras which follow, KaNaada tries to

point out certain features which the three categories of substance, quality,

and action share in common, and others which are peculiar to two, or to one

only. In the course of this discussion he has frequently to dwell on the

effects which they produce, and he therefore proceeds in the next lesson to

examine the meaning of cause and effect, and likewise of genus, species, and

individuals. It may be that the name of Vaiseshika was given to KaNaada's

philosophy from the differences, or Visheshhas, which he establishes between

substances, qualities, and actions, or, it may be, from Visheshha as a name of

individual things, applicable therefore to atoms. But this, in the absence of

decisive evidence, must for the present remain undetermined.CAUSEAs to cause

and effect, KaNaada remarks that cause precedes the effect, but that, in order

to be a true cause, it must be a constant antecedent, and the effect must be

unconditionally subsequent to it. There is an important and often neglected

difference between KaaraNa and KaaraNa. KaaraNa, though it may mean cause, is

properly the instrumental cause only, or simply the instrument. An axe, for

instance, is the KaaraNa, or instrument, in felling a tree, but it is not the

KaaraNa, or cause. Causes, according to KaNaada, are threefold, intimate,

non-intimate, and instrumental. The threads, for instance, are the intimate

cause of the cloth, the sewing of the threads the non-intimate, and the shuttle

the instrumental cause.QUALITIES EXAMINEDIn the second book KaNaada examines the

qualities of earth, water, &c. He, like other philosophers, ascribes four

qualities to earth, three to water, two to light, one to air (Aakaasha). These

are the principal and characteristic qualities, but others are mentioned

afterwards, making altogether fourteen for earth, such as colour, taste, smell,

touch, number, extension, individuality, conjunction, disjunction, genus,

species, gravity, fluidity, and permanence (ii, 1, 31). Qualities ascribed to

Iishvara, or the Lord, are number, knowledge desire, and volition. In the case

of air, which is invisible, he uses touch as a proof of its existence, also the

rustling of leaves; and he does this in order to show that air is not one only.

Curiously enough KaNaada, after explaining that there is no visible mark of air

(ii, 1, 15) but that its existence has to be proved by inference and by

revelation (ii, 1, 17), takes the opportunity of proving, as it were, by the

way, the existence of God (ii, I, 18) by saying that "work and word are the

signs of the substantial existence of beings different from ourselves". This,

at least, is what the commentators read in this Suutra, and they include under

beings different from ourselves, not only God, but inspired sages also. It

seems difficult to understand how such things as earth and the name of earth

could be claimed as the work of the sages, but as far as God is concerned, it

seems certain that KaNaada thinks he is able to prove His existence, His

omnipotence and omniscience by two facts, that His name exists, and that His

works exist, perceptible to the senses.Immediately afterwards, KaNaada proceeds

to prove the existence of Aakaasha, ether, by showing that it must exist in

order to account for the existence of sound, which is a quality, and as such

requires the substratum of an eternal and special substance, as shown before.

The question of sound is treated again more fully ii, 2, 21-37.A distinction is

made afterwards between characteristic and adventitious qualities. If a garment,

for instance, is perfumed by a flower, the smell is only an adventitious quality

of the garment, while it is characteristic in the case of earth. Thus heat is

characteristic of light, cold of water, &c.TIMETime, which was one of the

eternal substances, is declared to manifest its existence by such marks as

priority, posteriority, simultaneity, slowness, and quickness. The arguments in

support of the substantiality of air and ether apply to time also, which is one,

while its division into past, present, and future, hibernal, vernal, and

autumnal, is due to extrinsic circumstances, such as the sun's revolutions.

Time itself is one, eternal, and infinite.SPACESpace, again, is proved by our

perceiving that one thing is remote from or near to another. Its oneness is

proved as in the case of time; and its apparent diversity, such as east, south,

west, and north, depends likewise on extrinsic circumstances only, such as the

rising and setting of the sun. Like time it is one, eternal, and infinite.So

far KaNaada has been chiefly occupied with external substances, their qualities

and activities, and he now proceeds, according to the prescribed order, to

consider the eighth substance, viz. Aatman, the Self, the first in the list of

his sixteen Padaarthas. Like Gotama, KaNaada also argues that the Aatman must

be different from the senses because while the senses apprehend each its own

object Only-(I) the sense of hearing, sound; (2) the sense of smelling, odour;

(3) the sense of tasting, savour; (4) the sense of seeing, colour; (5) the

sense of feeling, touch; it follows that there must be something else to

apprehend them all, the work which in other philosophies was ascribed to Manas,

at least in the first instance. Besides, the organs of sense are but

instruments, and as such unconscious, and they require an agent who employs

them. If we see a number of chariots skilfully driven, we know there must be a

charioteer, and we know also that chariots and horses are different from the

charioteer. The same applies to the senses of the body and to the Self, and

shows that the senses by themselves could not perform the work that results in

cognition. In defending this argument against all possible objections, KaNaada,

following the example of Gotama, is drawn away into a discussion of what is a

valid and what is an invalid argument, and more particularly into an

examination of what is a Vyaapti, or an invariable concomitance, fit to serve

as a true foundation for a syllogism.MANASBut he soon leaves this subject, and,

without finishing it, proceeds to a consideration of Manas, the ninth and last

of the Dravyas or substances. This, too, is to him much the same that it was to

Gotama, who treats it as the sixth of the Prameyas. In this place, as we saw,

Manas might be translated by attention rather than by mind.ANUS OR ATOMSWhat is

thought to be peculiar to KaNaada, nay the distinguishing feature of his

philosophy, is the theory of ANus or atoms. They take the place of the

Tanmatras in the SaaMkhya philosophy. Though the idea of an atom is not unknown

in the Nyaaya-philosophy (Nyaaya-Suutras iv, 2, 4-25), it is nowhere so fully

worked out as in the Vaiseshika. KaNaada argued that there must be somewhere a

smallest thing, that excludes further analysis. Without this admission we

should have a regresses ad infinitum, a most objectionable process in the eyes

of all Indian philosophers. A mountain, he says, would not be larger than a

mustard seed. These smallest and invisible particles are held by KaNaada to be

eternal in themselves, but non-eternal as aggregates. As aggregates again they

may be organised, organs, and inorganic. Thus the human body is earth

organised, the power of smelling is the earthly organ, stones are inorganic.It

is, no doubt, very tempting to ascribe a Greek origin to KaNaada's theory of

atoms. But suppose that the atomic theory had really been borrowed from a Greek

source, would it not be strange that KaNaada's atoms are supposed never to

assume visible dimensions till there is a combination of three double atoms

(tryaNuka), neither the simple nor the double atoms being supposed to be

visible by themselves. I do not remember anything like this in Epicurean

authors, and it seems to me to give quite an independent character to KaNaada's

view of the nature of an atom.We are told that water, in its atomic state, is

eternal, as an aggregate transient. Beings in the realm of Varuna (god of the

sea) are organised, taste is the watery organ, rivers are water inorganic.Light

in its atomic state is eternal, as an aggregate transient. There are organic

luminous bodies in the sun, sight or the visual ray is the luminous organ,

burning fires are inorganic.Air, again, is both atomic and an aggregate. Beings

of the air, spirit, &c., are organised air; touch in the skin is the aerial

organ, wind is inorganic air. Here it would seem as if we had something not

very unlike the doctrine of Empedocles, Gaie men gor gaiam opopamen, hudati

d'hudor aitheri d'aithera diom alar puri par aidelom. But though we may

discover the same thought in the philosophies of KaNaada and Empedocles, the

form which it takes in India is characteristically different from its Greek

form.Ether is always eternal and infinite. The sense of hearing is the ethereal

organ: nay, it is supposed by some that ether is actually contained in the

ear.As to atoms, they are supposed to form first an aggregate of two, then an

aggregate of three double atoms, then of four triple atoms, and so on. While

single atoms are indestructible, composite atoms are by their very nature

liable to decomposition, and, in that sense, to destruction. An atom, by itself

invisible, is compared to the sixth part of a mote in a sunbeam.SAAMAANYAIV. As

to Saamaanya, community, or, as we should say, genus, the fourth of KaNaada's

categories, it is supposed to be eternal, and a property common to several, and

abiding in substance, in quality, and in action. It is distinguished by degrees,

as high and low; the highest Saamaanya, or, as we should say, the highest genus

(Jaati) is Satta, mere being, afterwards differentiated by Upadhis, or

limitations, and developed into ever so many subordinate species. The Buddhist

philosophers naturally deny the existence of such a category, and maintain that

all our experience has to do with single objects only. VISHESHHAV. These single

objects are what KaNaada Comprehends under his fifth category of Visheshha, or

that which constitutes the individuality or separateness of any object. This

also is supposed to abide in eternal substances, so that it seems to have been

conceived not as a mere abstraction, but as something real, that was there and

could be discovered by means of analysis or abstraction.SAMAVAAYAVI. The last

category, with which we have met several times before, is one peculiar to

Indian philosophy. Samavaaya is translated by inhesion or inseparability. With

Canada also it is different from mere connection, Samyoga, such as obtains

between horse and rider, or between milk and water mixed together. There is

Samavaaya between threads and cloth, between father and son, between two halves

and a whole, between cause and effect, between substances and qualities, the two

being interdependent and therefore inseparable.Though this relationship is known

in non-Indian philosophies, it has not received a name of its own, though such a

term might have proved very useful in several controversies. The relation

between thought and word, for instance, is not Samgoga, but Samavaaya

inseparableness. ABHAAVAVII. In addition to these six categories. Some

logicians required a negative category also, that of Abhaava or absence. And

this also they divided into different kinds, into (1) Pragabhaava, former

non-being, applying to cloth before it was woven; (2) Dhvamsa, subsequent

non-being, as when a jar, being smashed, exists no longer; and (3) Atyant-

abhaava, absolute non-being, an impossibility, such as the son of a barren

woman; (4) Anyonyabhaava, reciprocal negation, or mutual difference, such as we

see in the case of water and ice.It may seem as if the Vaisheshika was rather a

disjointed and imperfect system. And to a certain extent it is so. Though it

presupposes a knowledge of the Nyaaya system, it frequently goes over the same

ground as the Nyaaya, though it does not quote verbatim from it. We should

hardly imagine that the Vaiseshika Suutras would argue against Upamaana, or

comparison, as a separate PramaaNa, in addition to Pratyaksha (sense) and

Anumaana (inference), unless in some other school it had been treated as an

independent means of knowledge; and this school was, as we saw, the Nyaaya,

which is so far shown to be anterior to the Vaiseshika-philosophy. KaNaada

denies by no means that comparison is a channel through which knowledge may

reach us, he only holds that it is not an independent channel, but must be

taken as a subdivision of another and larger channel, viz., Anumaana or

inference. He probably held the same opinion about Shabda, whether we take it

in the sense of the Veda or of an utterance of a recognised authority, because

the recognition of such an authority always implies, as he rightly holds, a

previous inference to support it. He differs in this respect from the Carvaka

secularist, who denies the authority of the Veda outright, while KaNaada

appeals to it in several places.A similar case meets us in Gotama's

Nyaaya-Suutras (i, 16). Here, apparently Without any definite reason, Gotama

tells us in a separate aphorism that Buddhi (understanding), Upalabdhi

(apprehension), and Jñaana (knowing) are not different in meaning. Why should

he say so, unless he had wanted to enter his protest against some one else who

had taught that they meant different things? Now this some one else could only

have been Kapila, Who holds, as we saw, that Buddhi is a development of Prakrti

or unintelligent nature, and that conscious apprehension (Samvid) originates

With the Purusha only. But here again, though Gotama seems to have had the

tenets of the SaaMkhya-school in his eye, we have no right on this ground to

say that our SaaMkhya-Suutras existed before the Nyaaya-Suutras were composed-

All we are justified in saying is that, like all the other systems of Indian

philosophy, these two also emerged from a common stratum in which such opinions

occupied the minds of various thinkers long before the final outcome settled

down, and was labelled by such names as SaaMkhya, or Nyaaya, Kapila, or Gotama,

and long, of course, before the SaaMkhya Suutras, which we now possess, were

constructed.Return to DARSHANA