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CHAPTER IV
113
Fundamental as it is in the Vaišeșika system, višeșa is even more so in Dvaitism, on account of the Dvaitic belief that the entire course of reality is directly within the relentless grip' of this ‘power' or 'potency'.' Being at the heart of everything real, this 'power' is said, by no means figuratively, to be the very ‘nature' (svarūpa or svabhāva) of everything. "Bheda”, it is said, “is dharmisvarūpa.” “It exists, guides, and controls matters here and hereafter. Earth and Heaven, secular and spiritual, all concerns of daily routine life, and all concepts of the intellectual life, and conditions of scientific disciplines-all come under the relentless grip of difference. The fundamental form of objects is difference." 8 "Difference is thus the very stuff of the cosmos.". "By a mere stroke of the pen, by a mere fiat, a speculative, gesture, or an adroit assertion, or a craze for unity-mongering it would be impossible to deny or annihilate the difference that is constitutive and foundational of all reality-of sentient and non-sentient creation.". Madhva, on whose writings the statements quoted above are based, himself declares: “Diverse and of diverse attributes are all things of the universe" (thinnāś ca bhinna
2.
Thid
existence or bhāva, non-existence or abhāva being treated as a
distinctive category. See RRS, p. 168 ff. 1. See RRS, p. 511, para 1.
Ibid., p. 296. The following observations, also made by Madhva, are to the same effect : (i) padārthasvarūpatvāt bhedasya / bhedastu svarūpadarśana eva siddhaḥ / asya bheda iti tu padārthasya svarūpam itivat / Ibid., p. 583. (ii) bhedastu sarvavastūnām
svarūpaṁ naijam avyayam/ See HIP, Vol. IV, p. 155, f.n. 1. 3. RRS, p. 287. 4. Ibid., p. 292. 5. Ibid., p. 299.
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