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Relations
doomed, as relation is possible and necessary between existents alone. In the second place, inherence being a tertium quid must be related to the terms, otherwise it cannot be asserted as a relation of those terms. If, on the other hand, it be supposed to be related to the terms, it must be related either by itself or by the good offices of a second relation. The first alternative is not tenable, as self-relatedness is tantamount to unrelatedness. Moreover, if inherence can be related by its own self independently of the aid of another relation, the terms can with equal propriety be supposed to be related to each other by themselves. In that case there would be no logical necessity of positing a relation at all. Besides, if a relation quâ relation were self-sufficient for relating the terms and also for relating itself to the terms, why does the Vaiseșika make conjunction (samyoga), which is admittedly a relation, dependent upon another relation, viz., inherence, to make it related to the terms? This shows that relation as such is not capable of relating itself to the terms without the good offices of another relation. And if a second relation were posited to force the terms and the relation concerned into the framework of a relation, the second relation being equally unrelated would require a third relation and the third again would require a fourth and so on to infinity. In the third place, there is absolutely no logical or ontological necessity for positing a relation at all so far as the terms of the supposed inherence are concerned. Qualities are supposed to subsist in the substance by inherence. But no relation is necessary as quality, action or universals are not gravitating bodies, which would fall apart if a relation were not there to arrest their centrifugal activity.
The Vaiseṣika regards these objections as frivolous and unfair. The dilemma raised in the first objection is a figment. The relation of inherence does not presuppose pre-existent terms, as the terms come into existence only by means of inherence. That a term comes into existence means that it inheres in its material cause or that existence comes to inhere in the effect. So existence implies inherence as its necessary concomitant, even though inherence be not identical with existence. The existence and the inherence take place at one and the same
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