Vaishesika
• Founder – Kanada/Uluka
• To deal with the categories and to unfold its atomistic pluralism
• A Category is called padartha and the entire universe is reduced to six or seven padarthas
• Padartha - ‘the meaning of a word’/’the object signified by a word’
• Vaishesika system is a pluralistic realism, a philosophy of identity and difference; which emphasize that the heart of reality
consists in difference
• Originally Vaishesika believed in the six categories and the seventh one (abhava or negation) was added later on.
• Divides all existent reals which are all objects of knowledge in to two classes – Bhava or being and Abhava or non-being
• Six categories come under bhava and the seventh one is abhava
Categories: -
1. Substance (Dravya)
2. Quality (Guna)
3. Action (Karma) Bhava
4. Generality (Samanya)
5. Particularity (Vishesa)
6. Inherence (Samavaya)
7. Non-being (Abhava)
Dravya (Substance)
• Substance/Dravya is defined as the substratum where actions and qualities inhere and which is
the coexistent material cause of the composite things produced from it
- Signifies self-subsistence, the absolute and independent nature of things
- the basis of qualities and actions, actual or potential, present or future
- Nor can substance be defined apart from qualities and actions
- Compound substances are made out of the simple ultimate substances
- Compound substances – transient and impermanent; subject to production and destruction
- Simple ultimate substances – eternal and not subject to production and destruction
- 9 substances (material and spiritual)
: Earth (prthvi), Water (ap), Fire (tejas), Air (vayu), Ether (akasa), Time (kala), Space
(dik), Spirit (atman), Mind (manas)
Guna (Quality)
• Unlike substance, it cannot exist independently by itself
• It inheres in a substance and depends for its existence on a substance and is not a constitutive
cause of anything
• It is called an independent reality because it can be conceived, thought, and named
independently of a substance where it inheres
• Hence, they are objective entities; but not necessarily eternal
• Includes both material and mental qualities
• They are a static and permanent feature of a substance; while action is a dynamic and transient
feature of a substance
• Kanada mentions 17 qualities to which 7 more are added by Prashastapada
• Nyaya-Vaishesika – 24 qualities
• Smell, color, sound, taste, touch – material qualities
• Cognition, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, volition – mental qualities
Karma (Action)
• Like quality, it belongs to and inheres in a substance and cannot exist separately from it
• Action is a dynamic and transient feature of a substance
• It is of five kinds:
1. Upward Movement
2. Downward movement
3. Contraction
4. Expansion
5. Locomotion
Samanya (Generality)
• It is a class-concept, class essence or universal
• It is the common character of the things which fall under the same class
• It stands, not for the class, but for the common characteristic of certain individuals and does not
include the sub class
• It is called eternal, one and residing in many
• Example, ‘cowness’/’humanness’ etc.
• Kanada calls generality and particularity as relative to thought
• They are, in fact, objective realities
• Generality – lower and higher
• Higher generality – that of ‘being’ (satta)
• A universal cannot subsist in another universal, otherwise an individual may be a man, a cow, and
a horse at the same time
• Only one universal subsists in all individuals of a class
• What subsists in one individual only is not a universal
Vishesa (Particularity)
• It enables us to perceive things as different from one another
• Every individual is a particular, a single and a unique thing different from all
others
• Generality is inclusive and particularity is exclusive
• Each part-less ultimate substance has an original peculiarity of its own, an
underived uniqueness of its own which is called ‘particularity’ or vishesa
• It is therefore is the differentium of ultimate eternal substance which are
otherwise alike
• There are innumerable eternal vishesas
Samavaya (Inherence)
• It is the inseparable eternal relation, called inherence
• Kanada calls it as ‘the relationship between cause and effect’
• The things related to samavaya are inseparably connected
• It is eternal and imperceptible
• Example: The part and the whole
The quality and substance
The action and substance
The particular and the universal
Abhava (Non-existence)
• Kanada does not mention it as a separate category
• The first six categories are positive and the seventh one is negative
• Other categories are regarded as absolute but this category is relative in its
conception; absolute non-existence is an impossibility.
• 4 kinds: a. antecedent non-existence - the non-existence of a thing before its
production (no beginning but has an end)
b. subsequent non-existence - the non-existence of a thing after its
destruction (has beginning but no end)
c. mutual non-existence - the non-existence of a thing as another thing
which is diff. from it (beginning-less and endless)
d. absolute non-existence - it is a pseudo idea, the absence of a relation
between two things in the past, present, and future (beginning less and
endless)
Ex. A pot does not exist before its production, nor after its destruction; nor as a cloth; nor there is a ‘liquid pot’
