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108
PROBLEM OF AVIDYA
[CH.
AVIDYĀ IN THE VAISEŞIKA SCHOOL This school did not develop any separate conception of nescience (avidyā). The Vaiseșikasūtra is mainly busy with the examination of the generic and specific characteristics of the categories and refers to the problem of knowledge only incidentally. At the outset it proposes to examine the nature of dharma (religious merit) which it then defines as what conditions the attainment of well-being and final emancipation. The scripture (āmnāya) is held valid because it speaks of dharma.3 Final emancipation is due to the true knowledge (of the categories), born of dharma." After this brief statement about dharma and its instrumentality for final emancipation through the knowledge of truth, the Vaiseșikasūtra suddenly proceeds to divide, define, and examine the categories and their sub-categories. It comes back to the problem of dharma only in the sixth chapter where, very briefly, some features of dharma are considered. Again from the seventh chapter onward it plunges into its main theme of examination of the nature of the categories and the sub-categories and, curiously enough, reverts to the problem of dharma only in the last two sūtras of the last āhnika (lecture) of the last chapter. The main purpose of the Sūtra thus is not the examination of dharma, although the author pledges at the outset that he would examine dharma. It is difficult to ascertain the reason why the author did not redeem his pledge. The examination of dharma is the subject of the Mimāṁsā school and it seems anomalous why the Vaiseșikasūtra should propose to examine it. This anomaly becomes still more puzzling when we find that the Vaišeşikasūtra gives so little attention to the topic of dharma which ought to have been given a very important position in view of the initial enunciation of the Sūtra. But we can hazard a guess. The author of the Sūtra seems enamoured of the Mimāṁsā conceptions of dharma (religious merit) and adrsta (unseen religious potency) which he utilizes so frequently for the explanation of apparently unexplainable phenomena, both natural and supernatural.5 Many controversial metaphysical problems are settled by reference to the Vedas. Such ultimate issues as the initial motion of the atoms and the minds after universal dissolutions
1 athā 'to dharmam vyākhyasyāmah--VS, I. I. I. 2 yato 'bhyudaya-niḥśreyasa-siddhiḥ sa dharmaḥ-VS, I. 1. 2. 3 VS, I. 1. 3.
4 Cf. dharma-viśeşa-prasūtād dravya-guna-karma-sāmânya-viseșa-samavāyānām padārthānām sādharmya-vaidharmyābhyām tattvajñānān nihśreyasamVS, I. I. 4.
5 About adrsta cf. VS, V. I. 15; V. 2. 2, 7, 13, 17. About dharma cf. IV. 2. 7; IX. 2. 9.
Ĉ Cf. VS, II. 1. 17; III. 2. 21 ; IV. 2. IL; V. 2. 10
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