VAIŚEṢIKA PHILOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION
• Vaiśeṣika system was found by Kanada Rishi. It was named so because of the fact that
“Viśeṣa” was dealt elaborately. The founder of the philosophy as we are told was
surnamed Kanada because he led the life of an ascetic and he fed on grains of corn
gleaned from the field.
• The first systematic work of this philosophy is Vaiśeṣika-Sutra of Kanada. This work was
divided into ten adhyayas with each adhyaya containing two ahnikas or sections.
• Further from the two commentaries on Sankara’s Sankara Bhasya that Ravana ,King of
Ceylon, wrote a commentary on Vaiśeṣika system . Udayana’s Kiranavali and Sridhara’s
Nyaya kandals are two excellent commentaries on Prasastapadas work.
• Vallabhacharya’s Nyaya Lilavati is a valuable compendium of Vaiśeṣika philosophy.
Later works combine this system with Nyaya. Of these Sivaditya’s Sapta –padarthi,
Laugaski Bhaskara’s Tarka-kaumandi and Visvanatha’s Bhasaparicheda with its
commentary Siddhanta-muktavalli are important
• The Nyaya And Vaiśeṣika are allied systems of philosophy (Samanatantras).
• They have the same end in view namely liberation of the individual self.
• According to both ignorance is the root cause of suffering.
• Liberation which they call the absolute cessation is to be attained through a
right knowledge of reality. There is however some difference between two
systems on two fundamental points.
• Nyaya accepts four independent sources of knowledge :Perception,
inference Comparison and testimony.
• Vaiśeṣika recognises only two Perception and inference.
• Vaiseṣikas unlike Nyayikas recognize only seven padārthas and comprehend
all reals under them .
• The seven categories of reality are DRVYA, GUNA, KARMA, SAMANYA,
VISESA, SAMAVAYA, ABHAVA according to Vaiśeṣika.
• Padārtha literally means the object denoted by a word. So by Padārtha we
propose to mean all objects of all objects, denoted by words may be
broadly divided into two classes: BHAVA Or ABHAVA (Being and Non-
Being).
• Being stands for all that positive realities such as existent physical things
minds souls etc.
• Similarly Non-being stands for all negative facts like non-existence of things.
• There are six kinds of being or positive realities namely, SUBSTANCE,
QUALITY, ACTION, GENERALITY, PARTICULARITYAND INHERENCE.
• To this they later added a seventh Padārtha called abhava which stands for
all negative facts.
• The five elements each possess a unique quality, smell, taste, colour, touch, and sound,
respectively, which corresponds to one of the five physical senses, and each element is
said to constitute that sense.
• The other four substances are time (kala), space (dik), spirit (atman), and mind (manas, or
the internal organ). Time and space are, like ether, only one in number (eka),
eternal (nitya), and all-pervading (vibhu). They are imperceptible, eternal, intact
substances, partless and indivisible, but in ordinary discourse are spoken of as having
parts and divisions.
• Time is the cause of our perception of past, present and future, and also of the concepts
of “older” and “younger.” Space is the cause of our perceptions of the relative location
of things, such as “east” and “west,” “near” and “far,” “here” and “there.” Souls are
innumerable and each is an independent, all-pervading, eternal spiritual substance.
• Mind (manas) is the internal sense (antarindriya) and is considered atomic, but it does not
give rise to compound objects. Mind is also many, rather than a single substance, and
each is eternal and imperceptible.
 SUBSTANCE OR DRAVYA

• A substance (dravya) is defined as “the substratum where actions and qualities

inhere.” “Substance is the basis of qualities and actions, actual or potential, present
or future. Simple, ultimate substances … are eternal, independent, individual and
not subject to production and destruction. All the compound
substances (avayavidravya) which … arise from these simple substances are
necessarily transient, impermanent and subject to production and destruction.”
• There are nine substances, five of which are physical substances: Earth (prthivi),
water (Ap), fire (tejas), air (vayu) and ether (akasha). These are called elements; the
first four, earth, water, fire and air, signify the ultimate, indivisible atoms which make
up the physical universe. Ether is not atomic, but is infinite and eternal and forms the
medium in which the atomic elements combine with each other.
 QUALITY OR GUNA

• A Quality or guna is defines as that which exists in a substance and

has no quality and activity in itself.
• A substance exits by itself and is the constituent cause of thing. But
quality depends for its existence on some substance and is never a
constitutive cause of anything.
• A quality is an unmoving or motionless property of things.
• There are altogether 24 kinds of quality.
 24 TYPES GUNAS(QUALITY)
RUPA-COLOUR SAMYOGA-CONJUNCTION DVESA-AVERSION
RASA-TASTE VIBHAGA-DISJUNCTION PRAYATNA-EFFORT

GANDHA-SMELL PARATVA-REMOTENESS GURUTVA-HEAVINESS

SPARSA-TOUCH APARATVA-NEARNESS DRAVATA-FLUIDITY
SABDA-SOUND BUDDHI-COGNITION SNEHA-VISCIDITY
SANKHYA-NUMBER SUKHA-PLEASURE SAMSKARA-TENDENCY
PARIMANA-MAGNITUDE DUKHA-PAIN DHARMA-MERIT
PRTHAKTVA-DISTINCTNESS ICCHA-DESIRE ADHARMA-DEMERIT
 ACTION OR KARMA
• Karma or action is physical movement and is a dynamic behaviour of a substance.
• An action has no quality and must subsist in limited corporeal substances
(murtadravya) like earth, water, light, air, mind.
• There are five kinds of action namely :
1. Utksepana or throwing upward : The cause of contact of a body with higher region. E.g.:
throwing ball upwards.
2. Avaksepana or throwing downward : The cause of contact of a body with lower region.
E.g.: throwing ball downwards.
3. Akuncana or contraction : The cause of closer contact of parts of a body. E.g.: clenching
fingers.
4. Prasarana or expansion : The cause of destruction of closer contact. E.g. : opening
hand.
5. Gamana or locomotion : All other kinds of action. E.g.: walking of an animal
 GENERALITY OR SĀMĀNYA
• Generality (Sāmānya) is class concept, or class-essence, comparable to the
“universal” of European Scholastic philosophy.
• It is the universal quality or characteristic possessed by all the different
individual members of a particular class.
• It is described as “eternal, one, and residing in many.” It is one, though it
inheres in many individuals; it is eternal, though the individuals in which it
inheres are subject to birth and death, production and destruction.
• The universal and the particular are not simple subjective concepts of the
human mind; they are objective realities.
• The Sāmānya reside in substances, qualities and actions.
• They are of two kinds, higher and lower, with the
higher Sāmānya referring to “being” (sattā), which includes everything
and is not included in anything.
• All other generalities are “lower” because they cover only a limited
number of things.
• Only one universal inheres in all members of a class.
• A quality or action that pertains to only one individual is not
considered a universal.
• Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika regard particulars and universals as separately
real.
 PARTICULARITY OR VIŚEṢA
• Particularity (Viśeṣa) allows us to perceive things as different from one
another.
• Every individual is a particular, single, unique and different from all others.
Vaiśeṣika does not use this category to refer to the individuality of
compound objects, which can be distinguished by the differences of their
parts.
• The category of “particularity” is applied to the most basic, simple, ultimate
substances, which would otherwise be perceived as alike.
• Each partless, ultimate substance (dravya), including atoms, souls, space,
time, and manas (mind), has an original peculiarity of its own, an underived
uniqueness.
 INHERENCE OR SAMAVĀYA

• Inherence (samavāya) is one and eternal relationship subsisting between two things
inseparably connected.
• It is defined by Kanāda as “the relationship between cause and effect,” and by
Prashastapāda as “the relationship subsisting among things that are inseparable, standing to
one another in the relation of the container and the contained, and being the basis of the
idea 'this is in that.'”
• It is the imperceptible, and inferred from the relation of two things which are inseparably
connected: The part and the whole; the quality and the substance; the action and the
substance; the particular and the universal; the particularity and the eternal substance.
 NON-EXISTENCE OR ABHAVA
• Non-existence is the negative category of Vaiśeṣika System.
• It is of 2 kinds :
1. Samsargabhava : It means the absence of something in something else.
2. Anyonyabhava : It means the fact that one thing is not another thing.

• Samsargabhava is of three kinds :

1. Pragabhava : It is the non-existence of a thing before its production. It has no beginning but
has an end. E.g.: Non-existence of a house in bricks before its construction.
2. Dhvamsabhava : It is the non-existence of thing on account of its destruction after production.
It has beginning but no end. E.g. : A pot produced by a potter broken into pieces.
3. Atyantabhava : It is the absence of a connection between two things for all time- past,
present, future. It does not have beginning and end. E.g. : non-existence of colour in air.

• Anyonyabhava is the difference of one thing from another. When one thing is different
from another there is a mutual non-existence in each other. It has no beginning and
end. E.g. : A table is not a chair and A chair is not a table.
 ATOMISM IN VAIŚEṢIKA
• Vaiśeṣika professes the doctrine of Asatkāryavāda, that the effect does not pre-exist
in its cause, but is a fresh creation. It is not contained in is cause, nor is it identical
with the cause.
• All material objects of the universe are composed of parts which are divisible into
smaller parts, which are further divisible into even smaller parts. The minutest
particle of matter which cannot be further divided is eternal and partless. This
particle is called an atom (paramanu).
• Atoms are said to be spherical or globular. Creation is the combination of atoms in
different proportions, and destruction is the dissolution of such combinations. These
combinations do not pre-exist in atoms nor form their essential nature.
• The atoms are of four kinds: Earth, water, fire, and air. Every atom is unique, and the
qualities of atoms determine the qualities of the combinations they form.
• Atoms are the cause of the material world and are co-eternal with the
souls.
• Atoms are inactive and motionless in themselves; motion is imparted to them
by the Unseen Power of the merit (dharma) and demerit (adharma) which
resides in the individual souls.
• The Unseen Power is the efficient cause of the material world, while atoms
are its inherent cause.
• The Vaiśeṣika school admits the reality of spiritual substances—the soul and
God—and also the Law of Karma; therefore, its atomism is not materialistic.
 THE IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT VAIŚEṢIKA

• Minute detail is given to the working out of abstract concepts.

• A whole chapter is devoted to the concept of a number and how the
mind apprehends such an idea. For example, 1017 occurs in the text.
• The number of stars in the observable universe is about 1022.
• It represents the beginning of the scientific method of analysis and
synthesis.
• This attitude was expanded and amplified in later systems, as we shall
see.
 DIFFICULTIES IN VAIŚEṢIKA
• Even though everything has been reduced to atoms, the treatise finds
itself in a quandary. Where does the knowledge of the combinations
of atoms reside? This is its ultimate question.
• “Unique particularities reside in the ultimate substances. They are the
factors that make for ultimate distinctions among these substances.”
• Another difficulty is that time, space, atman and manas are all
classified under substance. Several chapters are devoted to discuss
the nature of time and space. Finally, it presents the argument from
design.
• “As from the motion of the chariot, we infer the existence of an
intelligent guiding agent in the shape of the charioteer, so also we
infer an intelligent guiding agent for the body … the agent is inferred
from the action of breathing … from the fact that wounds of the body
being healed up, we infer the existence of the agent who would be
like the master of a house repairing it.”
THANK-YOU!