A History of Indian Philosophy Part 41

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 distinguishing 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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[Footnote 1: Kalidasa's _k.u.marasambhava "Udghato [email protected] [email protected]_," also Mallinatha's gloss on it.]

[Footnote 2: Prof. Jacobi's "_The early history of Indian Philosophy,"

Indian Antiquary_, 1918.]

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itself as it includes all beings, all their actions, and all the sciences [Footnote ref 1]. He quotes [email protected] to show that in this capacity Nyaya is like light illumining all sciences and is the means of all works. In its capacity as dealing with the truths of metaphysics it may show the way to salvation. I do not dispute Prof. Jacobi's main point that the metaphysical portion of the work was a later addition, for this seems to me to be a very probable view. In fact Vatsyayana himself designates the logical portion as a [email protected] (separate branch). But I do not find that any statement of Vatsyayana or [email protected] can justify us in concluding that this addition was made after [email protected] Vatsyayana has no doubt put more stress on the importance of the logical side of the work, but the reason of that seems to be quite obvious, for the importance of metaphysics or _adhyatmavidya_ was acknowledged by all. But the importance of the mere logical side would not appeal to most people. None of the dharmas'astras (religious scriptures) or the Vedas would lend any support to it, and Vatsyayana had to seek the support of [email protected] in the matter as the last resource. The fact that [email protected] was not satisfied by counting [email protected] as one of the four vidyas but also named it as one of the philosophies side by side with [email protected] seems to lead to the presumption that probably even in [email protected]'s time Nyaya was composed of two branches, one as adhyatmavidya and another as a science of logic or rather of debate. This combination is on the face of it loose and external, and it is not improbable that the metaphysical portion was added to increase the popularity of the logical part, which by itself might not attract sufficient attention. Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasada S'astri in an article in the _Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society_ 1905 says that as Vacaspati made two attempts to collect the _Nyaya sutras_, one as _Nyayasuci_ and the other as _Nyayasutroddhara_, it seems that even in Vacaspati's time he was not certain as to the authenticity of many of the _Nyaya sutras_. He further points out that there are unmistakable signs that many of the sutras were interpolated, and relates the Buddhist tradition from China and j.a.pan that Mirok mingled Nyaya and Yoga. He also

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[Footnote 1: _Yena [email protected] pravarttate tat prayojanam_ (that by which one is led to act is called _prayojanam_); _yamartham abhipsan jihasan va karma arabhate tenanena sarve [email protected]@h [email protected] [email protected] sarvas'ca [email protected] [email protected] tadas'rayas'ca [email protected] pravarttate_ (all those which one tries to have or to fly from are called prayojana, therefore all beings, all their actions, and all sciences, are included within prayojana, and all these depend on Nyaya). _Vatsyayana bhas'ya_, I.i. 1.]

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thinks that the sutras underwent two additions, one at the hands of some Buddhists and another at the hands of some Hindu who put in Hindu arguments against the Buddhist ones. These suggestions of this learned scholar seem to be very probable, but we have no clue by which we can ascertain the time when such additions were made. The fact that there are unmistakable proofs of the interpolation of many of the sutras makes the fixing of the date of the original part of the _Nyaya sutras_ still more difficult, for the Buddhist references can hardly be of any help, and Prof. Jacobi's attempt to fix the date of the _Nyaya sutras_ on the basis of references to S'unyavada naturally loses its value, except on the supposition that all references to S'unyavada must be later than Nagarjuna, which is not correct, since the _Mahayana sutras_ written before Nagarjuna also held the S'unyavada doctrine.

The late Dr S.C. [email protected]@na in _J.R.A.S._ 1918 thinks that the earlier part of Nyaya was written by Gautama about 550 B.C. whereas the _Nyaya sutras_ of [email protected] were written about 150 A.D. and says that the use of the word Nyaya in the sense of logic in _Mahabharata_ I.I. 67, I. 70. 42-51, must be regarded as interpolations. He, however, does not give any reasons in support of his a.s.sumption. It appears from his treatment of the subject that the fixing of the date of [email protected] was made to fit in somehow with his idea that [email protected] wrote his _Nyaya sutras_ under the influence of Aristotle--a supposition which does not require serious refutation, at least so far as Dr [email protected]@na has proved it. Thus after all this discussion we have not advanced a step towards the ascertainment of the date of the original part of the Nyaya. Goldstucker says that both Patanjali (140 B.C.) and Katyayana (fourth century B.C.) knew the _Nyaya sutras_ [Footnote ref 1]. We know that [email protected] knew the Nyaya in some form as [email protected] in 300 B.C., and on the strength of this we may venture to say that the Nyaya existed in some form as early as the fourth century B.C. But there are other reasons which lead me to think that at least some of the present sutras were written some time in the second century A.D. Bodas points out that [email protected]'s sutras make allusions to the [email protected] doctrines and not to Nyaya.

On this ground he thinks that [email protected] sutras_ were written before Badarayana's _Brahma-sutras_, whereas the Nyaya sutras were written later. Candrakanta [email protected] also contends in his

[Footnote 1: Goldstucker's [email protected]_, p. 157.]

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edition of [email protected] that the [email protected] sutras_ were earlier than the Nyaya. It seems to me to be perfectly certain that the [email protected] sutras_ were written before Caraka (80 A.D.); for he not only quotes one of the [email protected] sutras_, but the whole foundation of his medical physics is based on the [email protected] physics [Footnote ref 1]. The [email protected] sutra_ (which as it was quoted by [email protected] is earlier than 80 A.D.) also makes allusions to the atomic doctrine. There are other weightier grounds, as we shall see later on, for supposing that the [email protected] sutras_ are probably pre-Buddhistic [Footnote ref 2].

It is certain that even the logical part of the present _Nyaya sutras_ was preceded by previous speculations on the subject by thinkers of other schools. Thus in commenting on I.i. 32 in which the sutra states that a syllogism consists of five premisses (_avayava_) Vatsyayana says that this sutra was written to refute the views of those who held that there should be ten premisses [Footnote ref 3]. The [email protected] sutras_ also give us some of the earliest types of inference, which do not show any acquaintance with the technic of the Nyaya doctrine of inference [Footnote ref 4].

Does [email protected] represent an Old School of [email protected]?

The [email protected] is so much a.s.sociated with Nyaya by tradition that it seems at first sight quite unlikely that it could be supposed to represent an old school of [email protected], older than that represented in the [email protected] sutras._ But a closer inspection of the [email protected] sutras_ seems to confirm such a supposition in a very remarkable way. We have seen in the previous section that Caraka quotes a [email protected]