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PURVA-MIMAMSA
325
'light,' is not thought of wherever darkness is seen is equally unconvincing. Of these dravyas, the first four as well as darkness are stated to be of atomic structure and the remaining ones, including soul, are described as infinite and ultimate. By 'atom' in this system should not be understood the infinitesimal paramāņu of the Vaiśeşika, but the smallest particle which experience acquaints us with, viz. the mote in the sunbeam which corresponds to the tryanuka of the other doctrine. The Vaiśeşika conception of atom is described as purely speculative, but it does not seem to be altogether rejected.1 From all the atomic substances, objects of different magnitudes may, as in the Nyaya-Vaiśeşika, be derived; only the relation between the material cause and the effect is here viewed as bhedabheda or tādātmya ('identity in difference'), instead of samavaya (p. 239), in accordance with the Bhāṭṭa belief in sat-karya-vada. These dravyas form only the support, as it were, of the universe. There are also other features of it which are divisible into three classesguna, karma and samanya or jāti, which together with dravya form the four positive categories of Kumārila's system. But it must be remembered that they are not conceived as entirely distinct from the dravyas to which they belong. The relation between them is one of identity in difference, so that the significance of 'category' here is not the same as in the Nyaya-Vaiseṣika. Kumārila's list also includes negation (abhava), and we therefore have five categories in all.3 The first of them has already been described and it is sufficient for our purpose to state that the notion of the others is for the most part like that in the NyāyaVaisesika.
The Prabhakaras accept four more positive categories of which we need refer here only to one, viz. samavāya. Its recognition means the entire rejection of the relation of identity in difference (bhedabheda) admitted by the Bhāṭṭas.4 As a consequence substance and attribute, universal and particular, material cause and effect come to be conceived as altogether distinct, and the doctrine does not subscribe to Mana-meyodaya, p. 6. 4 PP. p. 27.
1 SV. p. 404, st. 183-4.
3 Id. p. 65.
