Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 65

56
THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
time, or, as stated in the Manameyodaya, are special qualıties of these entities.
Action' as a category covers only, as in the NyāyaVaiseşika, the restricted field of motion, with its traditional five-fold divisions, as throwing up or down, drawing towards or expanding, and motions other than these. But Prabhākara maintains that it is only an object of inference, while Kumārila holds that it is perceived. The argument of the former rests on the fact that, when we think we see motion, We only see conjunction and disjunction with points of space, these contacts subsisting only in outside space and not in the moving thing, in which the activity of motion must reside. The reply of Kumārila's school is that it could only be inferred as the immaterial cause of the conjunction and disjunction of a thing with points in space, which would mean that it must subsist both in space and in the mig, whereas it exists in the thing only. We really see motion, which is in the thing and which brings about conjunction and disjunction in space, a doctrine which has now excellent modern support.
Generality both Prabhakara and Kumārila admit as real and as directly perceptible by the senses, and thus set themselves at variance with the Buddhist denial that there is any such thing as generality. The first Buddhist argument rests on the impossibility of the existence of any whole, which both schools of Mināmsā deny. But further difficulties are raised. If generality is perceptible and is eternal, as claimed in the Mimāṁsā, the absurdity arises of perpetual perception. Again, how is generality related to the individuals; is it present in its entirety in cach? If so, then there are as many generalities as individuals, and there is mere duplication of names. If not, then it must exist in all collectively, and therefore be entirely unknown, since one can never know all the individuals which make up a generality. If it is eternal, and exists before the individuals,
1 Prakaranapañçikā, pp. 78-81; Minamoyodaya, ppr 112, 113, a wider view is taken in Slokatārttika, p. 707 (v. 74).
* Prakararapañícikā, pp. 17-32; Slokaväritika, pp. 545-65, 61439, Mänomeyodaya, pp. 95-99; cf. Nyayamangari, pp. 297-324; Asoka, Samanyadūsanadik prasārita (Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, pp. 94-102).