________________
30.
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
recognized the abovementioned four mahābhūtas only raised akāsa to the status of asanskrta (eternal) dharma (element), thus putting at stake its bhautikatva (materiality). So, for them, ākāśa is a nonmaterial non-spiritual (rather non-psychical) element. Jainas too follow this old tradition of four mahābhūtas and hence maintain that ākāśa is not pudgala (matter), it is an independent substance. • The upholders of the view of four mahābhūtas maintain that Sabda is not a quality; it is a mode or an aspect of these four mahābhūtas. So, ākāśa was not needed as a substratum of sabdaguna. Hence, before these philosophers there arose a question as to what function the substance ākāśa is required to perform. All these philosophers declared that its function is to provide room to all other substances. It functions as a cotainer of all other substances. It offers obstruction to no substance. All bodies can move freely in it:
The first group of philosophers thinks that the ākāsa-mahābhuta which is the substratum of sabda could not play the entirely different role, viz. to function as a condition of our cognitions of relative spatial positions of material bodies. They seized upon an old idea of dik found in the Rgveda and the Upanişads. In the Rgveda dik was regarded as that which made possible our knowledge of relative spatial positions of material bodies and gave rise to the notions of far and near. These philosophers accepted dik to account for our cognitions of relative spatial positions of material bodies. According to the Sankhya dik is produced from ākāśa etc. (i.e. five mahābhūtas) along with the material bodies. In the absence of all the material bodies, there is no dik. In this sense, dik is dependent on material bodies. In other words, we may say that it is an aspect of material bodies. The Sankhya view of dik, understood and interpreted in this way, comes very near to the Theravāda view of ākāśa. The Vaiseșika view of dik differs from the Sankhya view of it in that the Vaiseșika. dik is not produced from ākāśa etc.; it is an eternal independent nonmaterial substance, it exists even before the production of material bodies i.e. even in pralaya.
The second group of philosophers maintains that their ākāśa which allows material bodies to occupy their positions in it can very well function as a condition of our cognitions of relative spatial positions of these bodies. So, they have not posited dik as an
panişads upon an ol.
which made
