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II ADHYÂYA, 2 PÅDA, 10.
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different from itself, whether it be unreal or real. And if that thing is held to be unreal, there arise further difficulties, owing to its having to be viewed as the object of knowledge, of refutation, and so on.
Here terminates the adhikarana of the impossibility of construction.
10. Or in the same way as the big and long from the short and the atomic.
We have shown that the theory of the Pradhana being the universal cause is untenable, since it rests on fallacious arguments, and suffers from inner contradictions. We shall now prove that the view of atoms constituting the universal cause is untenable likewise. Or in the same way as the big and long from the short and the atomic.'-'Is untenable' must be supplied from the preceding Satra ; 'or' has to be taken in the sense of and.' The sense of the Satra is—in the same way as the big and long, i.e. as the theory of ternary compounds originating from the short and the atomic, i.e. from binary compounds and simple atoms is untenable, so everything else which they (the Vaiseshikas) maintain is untenable; or, in other words-as the theory of the world originating from atoms through binary compounds is untenable, so everything else is likewise untenable.Things consisting of parts, as e.g. a piece of cloth, are produced by their parts, e.g. threads, being joined by means of the six sides which are parts of those parts. Analogously the atoms also must be held to originate binary compounds in the way of combining by means of their six sides; for if the atoms possessed no distinction of parts (and hence filled no space), a group of even a thousand atoms would not differ in extension from a single atom, and the different kinds of extension-minuteness, shortness, bigness, length, &c.—would never emerge. If, on the other hand, it is admitted that the atoms also have distinct sides, they have parts and are made up of those parts, and those parts again are made up of their parts, and so on in infinitum. - But, the Vaiseshika may object, the difference between a mustard seed and a mountain is due to the paucity of the constituent
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