Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/237

Rh these, substance possesses quality and action and is the origin of all objects. It has nine divisions: earth, water, fire, air, ether, space, time, soul and mind. Of these earth has five qualities; sound, tangibility, colour, savour and odour. The remaining four (water, fire, air, and ether) have each one quality less (than those possessed by its predecessor in the order in which they are named: that is to state more clearly, water has the qualities of sound, tangibility, colour and savour: fire has the qualities of sound, tangibility and colour: wind has the qualities of sound and tangibility, and ether has only one quality, sound). Collected substance has many qualities such as, sound, tangibility, colour, odour, savour, largeness, smallness, hardness, softness, goodness, meanness, form and space. Action is produced by substance and its qualities. The highest genus is truth or (being). As motion and rest are general qualities, dissolution and existence are natural to substance. Individuality is in atoms. Concretion is the intimate connection between attribute and subject.”

“She then asked the Bhûtarâti to speak and he said :—Just as the intoxication of toddy is generated by adding jaggery and the flower of the Dhatakee (Bauhinia-racemosa) to other ingredients, so does consciousness appear when the elements mix together (and form a body). Consciousness disappears like the sound of a broken drum when the elements (which form a body) disperse. The elements which, associated with life, possess feeling, and the elements which, separated from life, possess no feeling, are born from their respective elements. This is the true doctrine: The opinions of the Lokâyata are the same with slight differences. Except what is perceived by the senses, all that is inferred by the mind does not exist. The world and its effect exist in the present birth. That we enjoy the effects of our deeds in a future birth is false.”

Having listened to the professors of the five systems of philosophy, viz., (i) The Vedic Pramânavâta or Mimânsa, (ii) the Naiyâyika which comprised the Ajivaka and Nigranta Schisms, (iii) the Sânkhya, (iv) Vaisêshika, and (v) Bhûtavâta or Lokâyata. Manimekalai was eager to learn the Bauddha system, and went to the venerable Buddhist monk and said “I have heard the five philosophical systems, and as none of them appear to me to be