Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 19

VAISHALI İNSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. 1
mountain, they are due to interception of light on the other side and the incidence of light on the front. Light illumines an object on which it falls and the absence of light is responsible for darkness which may be understood either as negation of light according to the Vaišeşika or a positive substance incompatible with the presence of light. As for the remote succession of one constellation to another this is also capable of explanation only on the basis of causality. The causes of the rise of one constellation continue to operate, eventually giving rise to the causal conditions ushering in the subsequent rise of another. In fact we cannot conceive of any other necessary relation than causality as governing the occurrence of two events in succession. The absurdity of the occurrence of an event without an antecedent cause is irresistibly felt as an apriori law. This is the sanction of causality as a necessary and universal relation. Without causality the co-association of events must be looked upon as a coincidence. If a cause be not apparent we have to isolate the accidental associates and find out the true cause. Science has made progress only on the postulation of causality as a determining principle. Science rules out accidents and coincidences of chance as due to ignorance.
The minor premiss shows that an effect qua probans is necessarily co-existent with the cause qua probandum The rise of two constellations though separated by gap belongs to an identical period of time, Causality presupposes definite contiguity in spatio-temporal continuum. "Professor Broad has given the example of blowing of hooter both at Liverpool and at London at the same time. The sound of hooter is followed by the exit of the factory workers at both the places. Yet the Liverpool hooter is not regarded as the cause of the departure of the workers in London.". The continuum is supplied by the minor term (subject) in which the probans and the probandum ultimately coincide. The objection of Kumarila which is endorsed by Patrasvamin that the minor premiss is irrelevant is based on superficial reflection. It is contended that a river in spate presupposes rainfall in upper region. The spate is found below and rainfall has occurred a hundred miles apart. There is no common minor term. But why is rainfall inferred in the upper region of the self-same river and not of any other ? The flood in the Gangă cannot be accounted for by rainfall in England. So it is the common river connected with the upper and lower regions which is the logical subject. The inference of the Brahmanahood of the child from the Brāhmanahood of the parents; or to take a current example the religion of parents determining the religion of the child
1. Nava Nalanda Mahāvihāra Research Vol. I, pp. 192-93.