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PRABUDDH JEEVAN
FEBRUARY 2014
The pre-existence and future life of the soul are be- The proofs are: (1) All composite objects must have lieved in on ethical grounds. The child smiles and cries; a cause, because they are of the nature of effects, like now these are not mechanical movements like the a pot. This intelligent cause of the Universe is God. (2) opening and shutting of the Lotus flowers. Its drive for Some men are happy, others unhappy in this world. the mother's milk is not like the attraction of the Iron by Why? Because of the stock of you and 479 i.e. 31çe. But Magnet, for the child is not like metal. All this implies 316U is unintelligent. So an intelligent agent is necesmemory of past-experience-Pre-existence. If the pre- sary to guide 31çe : that is God. (3) The authoritativeexistence and future life of souls be not assumed, there ness of the Vedas is accepted by all. But what is the would, in ethics, be krtahāni or loss of merited action, source of the authority of the Vedas ? Not ordinary inand Akrtābhyagama or gain of unmerited result: the dividuals but the Supreme: Being, God, by whom they inequalities of life would be inexplicable.
are revealed, and therefore are acceptable as authoriSalvation is freedon from defilement. It is passion- tative. (4) God exists because the Scriptures say so. less existence. The Nyāya ideal is different from that The Vaiśesika and the Nyāya : The two schools of the Vedāntists, for to a ich, Moksa consists in mainly agree as regards the Atomic theory, the nature higher self-realisation, in being born anew in God, not of the soul, and their Realism. The Vaiseșika school is in absence of consciousness, but in a higher type of mainly directed against the Buddhist Phenomenalism. consciousness.
Againts that it asserts that Souls and substances are And yet, Nyāya is not far from Materialism; for it Reals. The Vaišeşika school is scientific rather than treats the soul itself as devoid of consciousness. Con- speculative, analytic rather than synthetic, and its dissciousness is a tertium quid between the soul and tinctive contribution to Philosophy is the classification matter (body).
of the seven categories and development of the atomic Nyāya Theism: īśvara : The Jains, Sankhyas and theory. Buddhists are atheists. As against them, the Naiyāyikas The Vaiśesika Categories: These are a metaphysiare theists. The world is an effect, and has order and cal classification of all nameable objects, and they are arrangement. It has therefore a Creator, just as a pot- six : Substance, Quality, Activity, Generality, Particuters is of the pot. The World Creator is išvara. He is larity and Inherence. A 7th Padārtha, Non-existence, Omniscient and He is the Giver of all fruits of our ac- is an epistemological category, added by the later tions. He supervises the adrsta or the non-intelligent Vaiseşika. These categories bring before the mind the activities of the Soul. He is a personal being, omni- Aristotelian 10 categories, which are a list of possible scient, and blissful.
predicates and are therefore logical, not metaphysical The तर्कदीपिका says नित्यज्ञानाधिकरणत्वं ईश्वरत्वम्. Theex-classes. istence of God is proved by the Law of Causation : Vaisesika Atomism: The Atomic theory is with fering and refraid. As the Universe is an ef- Vaisesika a metaphysical theory. It conceives the world fect, it must have a Cause, and that is God. This argu- of things as consisting of parts originating from parts. ment assumes that causality is universal, that every The changes in the world are due to the increase and effect like a must have an intelligent producer that this withdrawal of atoms composing them. The atoms do world is such an effect, and that producer must be an not exist in an uncombined state in creation. They are extraordinary Being, God. The Vedāntins and other Mo- possessed of a vibratory force (Parispanda). Atoms are nists attack these weak points in the arguments of the not all of the same quality : they differ in quality. Naivāvika. Infact Nyāya arguments are inconsistent Vaisesika Atomism and Greek Atomism differ. Acwith part of its own teaching, that Atoms Ether, Time,
cording to Demaritus atoms differ only quantitatively; Space, Souls, and Minds are eternal and cannot be
but the Vaiseșika accept also the qualitative differences,
but the Vaise effects or products; and hence can have no Creator.
each atom possessing its individuality (Visesa). Again, God, says Nyāya is the Creator of the world and He
according to the former atoms are by nature in motion; creates it out of the eternal atoms, space, time, ether,
according to the latter they are by nature at rest. Then mind and souls. Thus He is the efficient but not the
again, Greek Atomism took a mechanistic conception material cause of the Universe. He is infinite and om
of the universe; but the Vaisesika Atomism was not nipotent and has the six Aiśvaryas: is majestic, al
thoroughgoing materialism; it admitted God and the hymighty, all-glorious, infinitely beautiful and possessed
pothesis of a spiritual expalnation of the universe. of infinite knowledge and freedom from attachments.
(To be Continued) He is also the moral governor of the Universe
