Syadvada Manjari

Author(s): Mallishenacharya, F W Thomas
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 28

V. The Vai esika doctrine of eternality and non-eternality
from the moments: or, if it is not momentary, then the doctrine of momentary destruction is finished.
Nor is efficacy without succession possible in the momentary. For, if a single moment of the colour, time, etc., in a seed-case, etc., begot all at once a plurality of moments of savour, ete., it would beget them either by means of one single own-nature, or by various ownnalures. If by one, then there would be unity (ekatva) on the part of those moments of savour, etc., because begot by one single own-nature. But, if it is said that it begets by various own natures, - one thing, colour, ctc. by its nature as material, another, savour, etc., by its nature as co-operant, - then those own-natures are either identical with itself, or not identical with itself. If not identical with itself, there is default of their being (its) own-nature. If identical with itsell, then it is a plurality (anekalva) because of having a plurality of own-natures. Or else an unity of different own-natures would follow, because of their being not distinct from it, and because of its unity.
Or if, on the ground that what in one case is the being a material is identical with its elsewhere being it co-operant, we do not approve of a separation of own-natures, then how can the upholder of momentariness approve of the separation of own-natures in the eternal, which, though having one single form, produces in succession diverse effects, and the mixing up of effects? Or else, if it said that "The eternal, as being of one single form, has no succession, and how from what is without succession is there origination of diverse effects in succession ?' (23). -- Behold! the partiality of the blessed man!, who, although himself accepting a plurality of simultaneons effects effectable, by a plurality of causes, from a single part-less moment of colour, etc., as cause, raises opposition even to successive production, on the opponent's alternative, of diverse effects even on the part of an eternal substance! Therefore on the part of a momentary existence also efficacy in succession is hard to make out. Thus from the unequivocally non-eternal also efficacy is excluded because of the dismissal of succession and non-succession, which are its comprehenders. On the exclusion of that the existence also, simply by force of the undiscoverability of the comprehender, is dismissed. And so the thesis of the unequivocally non-eternal is not satisfactory.
But in the Quodammodo-doctrine the adoption of efficacy on the part of existences by way of an evolution, marked by the abandoning of former, and the acceptance of later, forms (ākāra), arid by permanence, is unobjectionable. Nor should it be said that, because the super-imposition of mutually repugnant attributes upon a single thing is illogical, the Quodammodo-theory is wrong; for what is accepted is a different alternative, distinct from the alternatives of eternal and non-eternal, and just in this way is everybody's experience.. For they quote as follows 18) -
"What consists of two parts, in one part a lion, in one part a man,
That partless one they call, with partition, "man-lion"10). Because the Vaiseșikas also admit a single whole with variegated colour 20); and the Buddhists also, because on the part of a single cloth, etc., they observe (upalabdheh) contradictory attributes, moving and non-moving, red and non-red, covered and non-covered, etc., do not accept contradiction of blue and non-blue in a single cognition of a variegated cloth.
And here, although the disputants in question 1) do not regard a lamp(-light), etc., as
18) Quoted also in Manibhadra's common Şad-darsana-sumuccaya, v. 46. 19) Here the term nara-simha, which can signify 'hero', evidently refers to Vişnu's Man-lion' incarnation
*) A typic recurrent in Indian philosophical discussions: see the commentaries on Vaiseșika-sutra, VIII. I. 6, and Prasastapada's bhäş ya, trans. Ganganath Jha, pp. 70-2.
12) The Vaišeşikas do not approve the doctrine of momentariness (kşarikatva), which as a Buddhist tenet is mentioned at note xvi (16), and discussed v. XVIII, pp. 119 sq.