Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/301

 VIII] Philosophy in the Vaifeika siib'"as 28 5 that the self is supposed to exist because it must be inferred as the seat of the qualities of pleasure, pain, cognition, etc. Traditionally this is regarded as the Vaiseika view as well. But in Vaiseika III. ii. 4 the existence of soul is first inferred by reason of its activity and the existence of pleasure, pain, etc., in III. ii. 6-7 this inference is challenged by saying that we do not perceive that the activity, etc. belongs to the soul and not to the body and so no certainty can be arrived at by inference, and in III. ii. 8 it is suggested that therefore the existence of soul is to be accepted on the authority of the scriptures (llgama). To this the final V aisei.ka conclusion is given that we can directly perceive the self in our feeling as "I" (alzam), and we have therefore not to depend on the scri ptures for the proof of the existence of the self, and thus the inference of the existence of the self is only an additional proof of what we already find in perception as "I" (aham) (III. ii. 10-1 8, also IX. i. I I). These considerations lead me to think that the Vaiseika represented a school of Mlmarpsa thought which supplemented a metaphysics to strengthen the grounds of the Vedas. Philosophy in the V aiseika siitras. The Vai.feika sittras begin with the ostensible purpose of ex- plaining virtue (dharma) (I. i. I) and dharma according to it is that by which prosperity (abll)ludaya) and salvation (JZi!lsrcyasa) are attained. Then it goes on to say that the validity of the Vedas depends on the fact that it leads us to prosperity and salvation. Then it turns back to the second siitra and says that salvation comes as the result of real knowledge, produced by special excellence of dharma, of the characteristic features of the categories of substance (dra'lrya), quality (gltza), class con- cept (siimii.llya), particularity (visea), and inherence (sama'lJiiya)l. The dravyas are earth, water, fire, air, ether, time, space, soul, and mind. The gU1)aS are colour, taste, odour, touch, number, measure, separations, contact, disjoining, quality of belonging to high genus or to species 2. Action (karma) means upward move- 1 Upaskiim notes that visea here refers to the ultimate differences of things and not to species. A special doctrine of this system is this, that each of the indivisible atoms of even the same element has specific features of difference. 2 Here the well known qualities of heaviness (gurutva), liquidity (dravat1'a), oili- nesS (smha), elasticity (sa1!lskiira), merit (dharma), and demerit (adharma) ha'e been altogether omitted. These are all counted in later Vaiseika commentaries and COln-