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xx] Ontological categories according to Venkațanātha 283 anā-bhāvā) is the predicate which is affirmed of the positive entity ākāśa, for in our experience of ākāśa we perceive that there is no occupation (āvarņa) in the ākāśa (ihā'varaņam nāsti). If this is not admitted, then such perceptions as “Here is an object” would be inexplicable, for the word “here" would have no meaning if it were mere absence of negation. If, again, ākāśa was absent in an occupying object, it would be unreasonable to define ākāśa as the absence of such an object; since nothing exists in itself, everything would on the above analogy become its own negation'. The fact that ākāśa sometimes seems to show the false appearance of a surface is due also to the fact that it is an entity on which certain qualities are illusorily imposed. If it were mere nothing, there could have been no predication of false qualities to it. When it is said that the negation of pain is falsely conceived as pleasure, the fact is that the so-called negation is only another kind of positivity 2. In the case of chimerical entities such as the sharp hare's horn there is an affirmation of horn in the hare, and when the horn is known there is a deliberation in our mind whether our notion of sharpness is true or false. The affirmation of sharpness, therefore, is not on mere negation. The falsity of chimerical predication also consists of affirming a predicate to a subject which in the course of nature it does not possess, and there is nothing like pure falsity or non-existence in such notions. When one says that there is no occupation here he must show the locus where the occupation is denied or negated; for a negation implies a locus. The locus of the negation of occupation would be pure space (ākāśa). If the negation of occupation meant absolute non-existence, then that would land us in nihilism. If the occupation (āvarana) did exist anywhere or did not exist anywhere, then in either case the production or destruction of such occupation would be undemonstrable; for an existent thing is never produced nor destroyed and a non-existent thing is neither produced nor destroyed. Thus, for these and other considerations, ākāśa, which is neither eternal nor all-pervasive, has to be regarded as a separate positive entity and not as mere negation of occupation. Dik or the quarter of the sky, north, south, etc., should
i na tv ākāśa-mātram āvaraneşv avidyamānatayā tad-abhāvu ākāśa iti cā'yuktam sarveşām svasminn avidyamānatayā stā-bhāvatva-prasangät. Sarvārtha-siddhi, p. 114.
? duhkha-bhāve sukhā-ropāt abhāvasya bhāvā-nyatva-matram eva hy asatvam siddham tena ca svarūpa-sann evā'sau. Ibid.
