Part 41 (1/2)

The supposition that the whole of the effect-collocation is the result of the joint action of the elements of cause-collocation is against our universal uncontradicted experience that specific elements const.i.tuting the cause (e.g. the whiteness of milk) are the cause of other corresponding elements of the effect (e.g. the whiteness of the curd); and we could not say that the hardness, blackness, and other properties of the atoms of iron in a lump state should not be regarded as the cause of similar qualities in the iron ball, for this is against the testimony of experience.

Moreover there would be no difference between material (_upadana_, e.g. clay of the jug), instrumental and concomitant causes (_nimitta_ and _sahakari_, such as the potter, and the wheel, the stick etc. in forming the jug), for the causes jointly produce the effect, and there was no room for distinguis.h.i.+ng the material and the instrumental causes, as such.

Again at the very moment in which a cause-collocation is brought into being, it cannot exert its influence to produce its

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effect-collocation. Thus after coming into being it would take the cause-collocation at least another moment to exercise its influence to produce the effect. How can the thing which is destroyed the moment after it is born produce any effect? The truth is that causal elements remain and when they are properly collocated the effect is produced. Ordinary experience also shows that we perceive things as existing from a past time. The past time is perceived by us as past, the present as present and the future as future and things are perceived as existing from a past time onwards.

The [email protected] a.s.sumption that effects are but the actualized states of the potential cause, and that the causal ent.i.ty holds within it all the future series of effects, and that thus the effect is already existent even before the causal movement for the production of the effect, is also baseless. [email protected] says that the oil was already existent in the sesamum and not in the stone, and that it is thus that oil can be got from sesamum and not from the stone. The action of the instrumental cause with them consists only in actualizing or manifesting what was already existent in a potential form in the cause. This is all nonsense. A lump of clay is called the cause and the jug the effect; of what good is it to say that the jug exists in the clay since with clay we can never carry water? A jug is made out of clay, but clay is not a jug.

What is meant by saying that the jug was unmanifested or was in a potential state before, and that it has now become manifest or actual? What does potential state mean? The potential state of the jug is not the same as its actual state; thus the actual state of the jug must be admitted as non-existent before. If it is meant that the jug is made up of the same parts (the atoms) of which the clay is made up, of course we admit it, but this does not mean that the jug was existent in the atoms of the lump of clay. The potency inherent in the clay by virtue of which it can expose itself to the influence of other agents, such as the potter, for being transformed into a jug is not the same as the effect, the jug. Had it been so, then we should rather have said that the jug came out of the jug. The a.s.sumption of [email protected] that the substance and attribute have the same reality is also against all experience, for we all perceive that movement and attribute belong to substance and not to attribute. Again [email protected] holds a preposterous doctrine that buddhi is different

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from intelligence. It is absolutely unmeaning to call buddhi non-intelligent. Again what is the good of all this fict.i.tious fuss that the qualities of buddhi are reflected on [email protected] and then again on buddhi. Evidently in all our experience we find that the soul (_atman_) knows, feels and wills, and it is difficult to understand why [email protected] does not accept this patent fact and declare that knowledge, feeling, and willing, all belonged to buddhi. Then again in order to explain experience it brought forth a theory of double reflection. Again [email protected] [email protected] is non-intelligent, and where is the guarantee that she ([email protected]) will not bind the wise again and will emanc.i.p.ate him once for all? Why did the [email protected] become bound down? [email protected] is being utilized for enjoyment by the infinite number of [email protected], and she is no delicate girl (as [email protected] supposes) who will leave the presence of the [email protected] ashamed as soon as her real nature is discovered. Again pleasure (_sukha_), sorrow ([email protected]_) and a blinding feeling through ignorance (_moha_) are but the feeling-experiences of the soul, and with what impudence could [email protected] think of these as material substances?

Again their cosmology of a mahat, [email protected], the tanmatras, is all a series of a.s.sumptions never testified by experience nor by reason. They are all a series of hopeless and foolish blunders.

The phenomena of experience thus call for a new careful reconstruction in the light of reason and experience such as cannot be found in other systems. (See _Nyayamanjari,_ pp. 452-466 and 490-496.)

Nyaya and [email protected] sutras.

It is very probable that the earliest beginnings of Nyaya are to be found in the disputations and debates amongst scholars trying to find out the right meanings of the Vedic texts for use in sacrifices and also in those disputations which took place between the adherents of different schools of thought trying to defeat one another. I suppose that such disputations occurred in the days of the [email protected], and the art of disputation was regarded even then as a subject of study, and it probably pa.s.sed then by the name _vakovakya_. Mr Bodas has pointed out that apastamba who according to Buhler lived before the third century B.C. used the word Nyaya in the sense of [email protected] [Footnote ref 1]. The word Nyaya derived

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[Footnote 1 _apastamba,_ trans. by Buhler, Introduction, p. XXVII., and Bodas's article on the _Historical Survey of Indian Logic_ in the Bombay Branch of J.R.A.S., vol. XIX.]

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from the root _ni_ is sometimes explained as that by which sentences and words could be interpreted as having one particular meaning and not another, and on the strength of this even Vedic accents of words (which indicate the meaning of compound words by pointing out the particular kind of compound in which the words entered into combination) were called Nyaya [Footnote ref 1]. Prof. Jacobi on the strength of [email protected]'s enumeration of the _vidya_ (sciences) as [email protected] (the science of testing the perceptual and scriptural knowledge by further scrutiny), _trayi_ (the three Vedas), _vartta_ (the sciences of agriculture, cattle keeping etc.), and [email protected]@daniti_ (polity), and the enumeration of the philosophies as [email protected], Yoga, Lokayata and [email protected], supposes that the _Nyaya sutra_ was not in existence in [email protected]'s time 300 B.C.) [Footnote ref 2]. [email protected]'s reference to Nyaya as [email protected] only suggests that the word Nyaya was not a familiar name for [email protected] in [email protected]'s time. He seems to misunderstand Vatsyayana in thinking that Vatsyayana distinguishes Nyaya from the [email protected] in holding that while the latter only means the science of logic the former means logic as well as metaphysics.

What appears from Vatsyayana's statement in _Nyaya sutra_ I.i. 1 is this that he points out that the science which was known in his time as Nyaya was the same as was referred to as [email protected] by [email protected] He distinctly identifies Nyayavidya with [email protected], but justifies the separate enumeration of certain logical categories such as [email protected]'aya_ (doubt) etc., though these were already contained within the first two terms [email protected]_ (means of cognition) and _prameya_ (objects of cognition), by holding that unless these its special and separate branches ([email protected]_) were treated, Nyayavidya would simply become metaphysics (_adhyatmavidya_) like the [email protected] The old meaning of Nyaya as the means of determining the right meaning or the right thing is also agreed upon by Vatsyayana and is sanctioned by Vacaspati in his [email protected]_ I.i. 1). He compares the meaning of the word Nyaya ([email protected]@[email protected]_--to scrutinize an object by means of logical proof) with the etymological meaning of the word [email protected] (to scrutinize anything after it has been known by perception and scriptures). Vatsyayana of course points out that so far as this logical side of Nyaya is concerned it has the widest scope for

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