Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/419

 IX] Mzmiil?ZSii and Nyiiya- Vaz"se£ka 4°3 no one can have any knowledge of them. Moreover there cannot be any contact (Saltlyoga) or inherence (samaviiya) of dharma and adharma with God that he might supervise them; he cannot have any tools or body wherewith to fashion the world like the carpenter. Moreover he could have no motive to create the world either as a merciful or as a cruel act. For when in the beginning there were no beings towards whom should he be actuated with a feeling of mercy? Moreover he would himself require a creator to create him. So there is no God, no creator, no creation, no dissolution or pralaya. The world has ever been running the same, without any new creation or dissolution, s!,!?!i or pralaya. Mimarpsa as philosophy and Mimarpsa as ritualism. From what we have said before it will be easy to see that Mlmarpsa agrees in the main with V aiseika about the existence of the categories of things such as the five elements, the qualities, rupa, rasa, etc. Kumarila's differences on the points of jati, samavaya, etc. and Prabhakara's peculiarities have also been mentioned before. On some of these points it appears that Kumarila was influenced by Sarpkhya thought rather than by Nyaya. Sarpkhya and Vaise!?ika are the only Hindu systems which have tried to construct a physics as a part of their metaphysics; other systems have generally followed them or have differed from them only on minor matters. The physics of Prabhakara and Kumarila have thus but little importance, as they agree in general with the Vaise!?ika view. In fact they were justified in not laying any special stress on this part, because for the performance of sacrifices the common-sense view of N yaya- Vaise!?ika about the world was most suitable. The main difference of Mlmarpsa with Nyaya consists of the theory of knowledge. The former was required to prove that the Veda was self-valid and that it did not derive its validity from God, and also that it was not necessary to test its validity by any other means. To do this it began by trying to establish the self- validity of all knowledge. This would secure for the Veda the advantage that as soon as its orders or injunctions were com- municated to us they would appear to us as valid knowledge, and there being nothing to contradict them later on there would be nothing in the world which could render the Vedic injunctions