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Aptamīmāṁsā
transient one. Generality (sāmānya) relates to abstract characteristic that is singular and eternal and yet pervades many. Like leadership is a single characteristic, but it resides in many individuals. Leadership is also eternal because it was already in existence before the first leader emerged and will continue to exist even if there were no more leaders. Uniqueness (vićeşa) is that characteristic by virtue of which a thing is distinguished from all other things. Like space, time and soul, it is eternal. Everything in the world, existent or nonexistent, is accompanied by uniqueness. Generality and uniqueness are opposite concepts. Inherence (samavāya) is a permanent relation between two entities, one of whom inheres in the other. One of the entities depends for its existence on the other. Objects in an inherent relationship cannot be reversed as those that are related by nearness. Non-existence (abhāva) is that which is not found in any of the six positive categories, and yet according to the Nyāya-Vaiseșika view non-existence exists, just as space and direction. To illustrate, to the question ‘how does one know that there is no chair in the room?', the answer is ‘by looking at the room'. Thus non-existence also exists.
The universalities and particularities are held to be eternal and have a distinct own-nature, but these are not credited with existence (sattā), which is confined to substances, qualities and actions.
The gist of the Jaina argument is that universality and particularity are involved in the nature of everything and not imposed from outside by virtue of a relation of‘inherence'.
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