History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

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The Nyaya-Vaiseṣika Philosophy
[CH.
of substance consists in this, that it is independent by itself, whereas the other things such as quality (guna), action (karma), sameness or generality (sāmānya), speciality or specific individuality (višeṣa) and the relation of inherence (samavāya) cannot show themselves without the help of substance (dravya). Dravya is thus the place of rest (asraya) on which all the others depend (āśṛta). Dravya, guṇa, karma, sāmānya, višeṣa, and samavāya are the six original entities of which all things in the world are made up1. When a man through some special merit, by the cultivation of reason and a thorough knowledge of the fallacies and pitfalls in the way of right thinking, comes to know the respective characteristics and differences of the above entities, he ceases to have any passions and to work in accordance with their promptings and attains a conviction of the nature of self, and is liberated. The Nyaya-Vaiseṣika is a pluralistic system which neither tries to reduce the diversity of experience to any universal principle, nor dismisses patent facts of experience on the strength of the demands of the logical coherence of mere abstract thought. The entities it admits are taken directly from experience. The underlying principle is that at the root of each kind of perception there must be something to which the perception is due. It classified the percepts and concepts of experience into several ultimate types or categories (padartha), and held that the notion of each type was due to the presence of that entity. These types are six in number-dravya, guna, etc. If we take a percept "I see a red book," the book appears to be an independent entity on which rests the concept of "redness" and "oneness," and we thus call the book a substance (dravya); dravya is thus defined as that which has the characteristic of a dravya (dravyatva). So also guna and karma. In the subdivision of different kinds of dravya also the same principle of classification is followed. In contrasting it with Samkhya or Buddhism we see that for each unit of sensation (say
1 Abhāva (negation) as dependent on bhava (position) is mentioned in the Vaiseşika sutras. Later Nyaya writers such as Udayana include abhāva as a separate category, but Sridhara a contemporary of Udayana rightly remarks that abhāva was not counted by Prasastapāda as it was dependent on bhava-"abhāvasya prthaganupadeśaḥ bhavapäratantryät na tvabhāvāt." Nyayakandali, p. 6, and Lakṣaṇāvali, p. 2.
2" Tattvato jñāteṣu bāhyādhyātmikesu viṣayeșu doșadarsanat viraktasya samīhānivṛttau atmajñasya tadarthäni karmanyakurvataḥ tatparityägasādhanāni śrutismṛtyuditäni asankalpitaphalani upadadānasya ātmajñānamabhyasyataḥ prakṛṣṭanivarttakadharmopacaye sati paripakvātmajñānasyātyantikafariraviyogasya bhāvāt." Ibid.
P. 7.