Once Again Vaisesika Sutra 3 1 13

SR No.: 269610
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Total Pages: 17
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 15

ONCE AGAIN VAIŠEŞIKA SUTRA 3.1.13
679
Here VS 3.1.13 is used to prove the difference between the self and knowledge. This can be done, even if 3.1.13 is considered a definition of perception.
We have come to the end of this article. It must be admitted that the reconstruction of the context and of the interpretation here presented of VS 3.1.13 cannot be definitely proved to be correct. They do, however, solve a number of problems which other interpretations had failed to solve. The least one can deduce from them is that the arguments which discard the interpretation of 3.1.13 as a definition of perception on the basis of its context are not conclusive. VS 3.1.13 can be interpreted as a definition of perception, as maintained by our earliest witnesses; and other difficulties surrounding Adhyāya 3 can be solved, if only we are willing to consider the possibility that the order of sūtras which we find in the surviving versions of the Vaisesika Sūtra may in one point deviate from their original order. This possibility in its turn, as we have seen, is supported by the fact that other commentators on Sūtra texts are known to have occasionally changed the order of sūtras on which they comment. In view of all this, we may conclude with a variant of an observation made by Oetke (1988: 310): The hypothesis that the sūtras of Ahnika 3.1 have reached us in their original order may not be less speculative than the opposite assumption.
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