Page:A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1.djvu/169

Rh remember anything like this in Epicurean authors, and it seems to me to give quite an independent character to Kanāda's view of the nature of an atom.

"We are told that water, in its atomic state, is eternal, as an aggregate transient.. Beings in the realm of Varuna (god of the sea) are organised, taste is the watery organ, rivers are water inorganic."

"Light in its atomic state is eternal, as an aggregate transient. There are organic luminous bodies in the sun, sight or the visual ray is the luminous organ, burning fires are inorganic.

"Air, again, is both atomic and an aggregate. Beings of the air, spirits, etc., are organised air; touch in the skin is the ærial organ, wind is inorganic air. Here it would seem as if we had something not very unlike the doctrine of Empedocles.

* * * But though we may discover the same thought in the philosophies of Kanāda and Empedocles, the form which it takes in India is characteristically different from its Greek form."