Advaita Vedanta

Author(s): Kalidas Bhattacharya, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 56

Some Clarifications
[ Capability for X might indeed be understood positivistically as the mere fact that given that which is said to have that capability and other causal factors, X will occur. But even then the factor which is said to have that capability could not be considered merely as it is, i.e. without that capability itself as a distinctive character; for in that case there would be no reason why that factor and not any other could be responsible for the occurrence of X. The same point cannot however be urged against all the other causal factors involved Many of these other causal factors are mere accessories, though necessary (vide the distinction between nimitta and upādana), and if some of them are not mere accessories they too will have to be considered as having that capability, like the one which is already admitted to be so.
The way we are talking about upādāna is, of course, in the line of satkāryavādu, and Nyāya-Vaišeșika would undoubtedly demur. But, then, his very notion of samavāya, may be called in question. He cannot deny that his notion of samavāya, at least his notion of svarā pasambandha, involves a paradox; only, he has been bold enough to accept the paradox as after all one that is giver, a final inexplicability that one has to put up with. The Advaita reaction to this attitude has been recorded several times in this work. ]
Nyāya-Vaišeșika admits self as a substance behind mental states on two other grounds. They are : (a) A group of mental states, differing from one anoth
yet experienced as mine, i.e. somehow unified in the context of 1. It follows that I here, i.e. the self, is the uni
fying principle, the substance. (b) Memory—the phenomenon of remembering what was once
experenced-cannot be explained unless one admits that there is a self which comprehends both this memory and that original experience.
To both the arguments, however, Advaita wouldoffer the following simple reply :
He has nothing against there being something ulterior behind mental states (including the memory and the original