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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
rejoining that all the latter's verbal subtleties have not succeeded in ruling out a reference in the latter's argument-however indirectly it might be-to the avayavas with regard to ākāśa. It is, as a matter of fact, quite obvious that the Naiyayika's analogy of the tree and the monkey would fall to the ground if the essential element of the branch of the tree is removed from it.
Another important consideration which undermines the Naiyayika's thesis of indivisibility (niravayavatva) of ākāśa in the above argument of kapivṛkṣasamyoga hinges on the relation of samyoga figuring in it. The sitting monkey is conjoined to the branch of the trees by way of samyoga or external relation. Samyoga is admitted by the Naiyāyika himself as a guna, and a guna in turn is admitted to need a dravya for its asraya', or support. The support in the analogy under consideration is the tree and, correspondingly, the support for the avayavas of ākāśa, is evidently ākāśa itself. This means that the avayavas of ākāśa are not a case of either upadhi or avyäpyavṛtti as is evidenced by the grounds admitted by the Naiyāyika himself. Thus this as well as the previous argument as advanced by the Nyāya school presupposes, at any rate indirectly, the Jaina thesis of the savayavatva of ākāśa.
Akalanka also does not see eye to eye with the Naiyāyika on the question of impartite ākāśa. He is inclined to feel that the divisibility of ākāśa would be incompatible with the divisibility of a material object. In other words, the
1. samyogasya gunatvena dravyāśritatvāt tadabhave ca tadabhāvāt / Ibid. See also TS, sū. 4.
