Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 60

THE WORLD OF REALITY
51
been perceived, which would be normally impossible, absolutely so in the case of a whole of imperceptible parts like atoms. This dialectic, which the Nyāva Sutra (IV, 2, 7-14) also seeks to face, is niet with the argument that, as there is an interminable dispute between the opposing schools, the Buddhists who deny the difference of the whole from its parts, and the Nyāya who assert the distinction, the safe course lies in the via media of admitting that a whole is in one sense different from, and in another sense not different from, Its constituent parts. A whole, therefore, is not of a simple and absolute character, and resembles an object with variegated hues, but it is not the less real for that. Invalidity applies to doubtful ideas, not to ideas of an object which in itself is not absolute in character. The
stock argument of the Buddhists, that if any composite thing „J$ investigated no whole renains after deduction of the com
posing parts, e.g, the threads of a mat, is met by the rejoinder, in harmony with the Nyāya, that the same result is achieved on the Nyāya view, which regards the whole as different from the parts, the whole, in their view, only exists when there is an agglomeration of parts; if, mentally, you take away the parts, naturally the whole, despite its difference from the parts, disappears also. The further hypothesis, that what is really seen is merely atoms without real unity but visible in numbers, though singly invisible, is naturally rejected as devoid of cogency. Finally, the argument is used that the atteinpt to ask if a whole resides in the parts, as an entirety in each or collectively in all, is mistaken. The whole is impartite, and the idea of its relation to its individual constituents in whole or in part is a question which arises only in respect of the individual elements, and is meaningless as applied to the whole."
The value of Kumārila's refutation of the Buddhist schools is not inconsiderable; he brings out fully the grave difficulties which meet any effort to account for the facts of life without accepting some permanent entity, and the objections to the effort to evade this problem by creating the fig
Slokavörttika, pp. 632-34 (vv, 75-83); cf. Nyāyamañjari, p. 550, Avayaivinitakarana (Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, pp. 78-93).