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points out that I'vara or God is the source of fruition of karma, for without him the activities of men are apt to be fruitless. It is also known to the ancient schools that it was not God but man (Puruşa ) who is to be held responsible for the appearance of fruits of karma i. e. pleasure and pain. These fruits cannot originate directly from God, unless there is human action behind them.
Like the Naiyāyika, the Vaiśeṣika philosophers look upon karma as a quality of the mundane soul which is the moral cause of all inequalities in the created world both mental and physical. The Vaiseṣikas admit seven categories of being-six positive and one negative. Among the positive categories, they admit substance (Dravya), quality (Guna), action (Karma) and universal (Jati), particularity (Višeṣa) and inherence (Samavāya )* The negative categroy is the principle of negation or Abhāva.
In this list of categories karma falls under quality as well as action. In the sense of physical movement or movement of any sort, karma is action indeed. This includes action of the mind and action of the body, but when this action is inspired by desire or by aversion under the influence of ignorance, it produces a hidden quality among the human soul partaking of the nature of Dharma and Dharmadharma in the case where the result of the action is happiness and adharma, in cases in which the result of the action is suffering. This dharma and adharma usually known as punya and papa is called by a common name Adṛṣṭa or the unseen force. Technically speaking this dṛṣṭa is a quality belonging to the soul and remains in it until it is destroyed by knowledge. Prasastapāda in his com nentary on the Vaiseşika system gives a detailed account of the conception of dharma and adharma from the stand point of the realists. He has devoted an important section to the question of karma in the form of dharma and adharma in the Guna section of the work.1 In these sections he has dealt with dharma and adharma from the
1. Prasastapada Bhasya pp. 272-280.
