Table Of ContentCONCEPTION OF MATTER
ACCORDING TO
NYAYA-VAIQESIKA
PRINTED BY M. N. PANDET AT THE ALLAHABAD LAW JOURNAL
PRESS, ALLAHABAD AND PUBLISHED BY SYT. UMESHA MISHRA,
BANK ROAD, ALLAHABAD
All rights reserved by the author
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CONCEPTION OF MATTER
ACCORDING TO
NYAYA-VAICESIKA
By
UMESHA MISHRA, M.A., KAVYATIRTHA, D.LITT.
With a Foreword by
MM. DR. GANGANATHA JHA, M.A., D.LITT., LL.D.
Allahabad
AND
An Introduction by
MM. PANDITA GOPINATH KAVIRA), M.A.
Principal, Government Sanskrit College, Benares
ALLAHABAD
1936
FOREWORD
PARADOXICAL as it may seem, the author of the
book is its worst enemy. He has named it 'Concep-
tion of Matter'. This name implies the idea that the
work confines itself to the material aspect of things.
On looking into it, however, one finds that it deals,
not only with the material, but with all conceivable
aspects of things. Unless, therefore, 'matter' is under-
stood in its widest connotation—standing for 'things'
or 'beings',—it is misleading.
The reader will find that the writer has taken great
pains over the work; he does not seem to leave un-
noticed any work that is available on the subject. One
would wish he had been less 'generous' in the choice of
his authorities. Everything that has been written is not
necessarily 'authoritative'. The writer has himself
found this to his own cost in several places, where
he would have saved himself much bewilderment
if he had been more discriminating in the use of the
materials at hand. He would have achieved this end
if he had concentrated upon the dkaragranthas and omit-
ted the manuals,— especially the later ones,— but
perhaps the work would have been less 'full and com-
plete' than it is. Tt is hoped that serious investigators
in the same field will have reason to thank him for
having made their work lighter*
There are one or two points, which deserve some
attention—
i) We are told on page 50, that while Naiyayikas
are worshippers of £iva Vai§esikas are worshippers
9
of Mahepara and Pafupati, and this is mentioned as in-
dicating the difference in the 'religion' of the two sys-
VI CONCEPTION OF MATTER
terns. This point needs further elucidation. The
ordinary reader cannot find any difference between
Civa and Mahefvara, or even any difference in the 're-
ligion' of persons worshipping God under one or the
other name. It should be the business of the philoso-
pher to find unity even where there is disunity—not
to find disunity where there is none.
2) The treatment of the Law of Karman—which
forms the keystone of Indian Philosophy—should
have been more illuminating. On p. 272, we read
"For each and every action, there is responsibility";
and this is immediately followed by the statement—
"almost all of them are pre-determined". One fails
to understand how there can be 'responsibility' along
with "Determinism". The point needed to be clari-
fied.
5) Lastly, there is the fashionable statement
that 'Atmatf is cjada9;—l confess that I have never
understood this assertion, which, to my mind, appears
to confuse *Cetana9 with 'Caitattya9. However, this
has become so fashionable and received acceptance in
such high quarters that it must stand. It is with some
trepidation that I have expressed my disagreement.
Our lexicons have declared dosajna—oxit who
detects defects'—to be synonymous with 'Pandita9—
the 'wise or learned man'* It is as a €dosajna9 therefore
that I have noted the above three points. Now as a
'wise' man, I proceed to commend the book to all
serious students of Indian Philosophy. We have lately
had a number of excellent accounts of 'Indian Philo-
sophy'; but to the best of my knowledge, we have not
as yet, had any such full and complete account of any
one system as the one that we find in the present work.
As already pointed the writer has exhausted all the
material available—not only in print, but also in manus-
cripts. No student of the system, therefore, can do
without this excellent work. We wish we had similar
FOREWORD Vll
handbooks on the other philosophical systems also—
as fully documented as Dr* Umesha Mishra's work is.
It is hoped that the work will find readers to profit
by it, and to emulate the example set by it.
ALLAHABAD GANGANATHA JHA
November i, 1936
INTRODUCTION
THE study of Indian Philosophy has emerged, with
the slow publication of hitherto obscure texts and with
the gradual widening of interest in original researches,
from its general and rudimentary stage of the previous
century into a critical and systematised form today.
The following pages represent a brilliant attempt of
this kind and the writer is to be heartily congratulated
on the manner in which he has made his learning
bear on the subject.
The subject chosen for a special study is the Con-
ception of Matter in Indian Philosophy. It is an in-
teresting theme and as it covers a wide field the writer
has done well to restrict himself to a single system
only, vifc., that of Nyaya-Vaigesika, though he has
taken the liberty of going afield on occasions for pur-
poses of comparison and illustration. It may be hoped
that other writers will, in due course, supplement the
work, bringing together in a systematised way all
that other thinkers have got to say on the problem
of Matter.
The Conception of Matter is elastic as a study of
the history of Western Philosophy will show. And
even in science the conception has gone through a series
of rapid developments into its recognised meaning
of the present day physics. Before going further
into the question it would be proper to take into account
the meaning the writer himself attaches to the tetm
in dealing with the subject. It seems that in his opi-
nion the entire world is divisible into Self or Atman
and things other than Self or Acetana. What he under-
stands by Matter is really the entire Not-Self, with all
X CONCEPTION OF MATTER
that it implies. The implications of the Not-Self of
course differ according to the difference in the system
of thought.
Every school of thought has had to tackle this
question in its own way- The Vrakrti of Sankhya,
the Maya of £ankara-Vedanta, the Bindu of Southern
£aivaism and the Acit of Ramanuja-Vedanta are only the
diverse views on this very question. Everywhere
except in the extreme views of Monistic Materialism
and Monistic Spiritualism there is a sort of dualism
between Spirit and Matter. The Carvakas who
admit nothing but matter in its densest form are
monists in the sense that to them everything else,
including conscious and other psychic pheno-
mena—indeed the whole paraphernalia of the so-
called spiritual life,—is a function of matter. Being
advocates of the Doctrine of Chance and opponents
of Causality they find no room for a transcendent prin-
ciple in their outlook on Reality. What is believed
to be immaterial has either no existence at all or is,
in fact, reducible to a function of matter. The Spi-
ritual Monism, on the other hand, entertains a different
opinion, viz. that matter is only a passing semblance
and that pure consciousness alone is real. The Bud-
dhist Idealists, the Advaitaism of £ankara's school,
the monistic thinkers of the Kashmira Caivagama—
though widely divergent in their general outlook—
agree in this that nothing but Caitanya is real in the true
sense, whether it is conceived as vijndna which is momen-
tary or as Brahman or as Qva-(^akti (Prakdfa-Vimarfa)
which is eternal. There is therefore no true parallel-
ism of Matter and Non-matter here. But even in these
systems the Conception of Matter is not everywhere
the same. To the Yogacara the material is only a bye-
product of Vijndna appearing spontaneously through
>
its internal potency under the stress of Vdsand. To
(JaAkara Matter in its primordial form is nothing but
INTRODUCTION XI
a synonym of the Original Nescience which erroneously
but mysteriously attributes itself to the Supreme Intel-
ligence or Pure Spirit. To the Trika Matter is nothing
but the Veiling Power of the Spirit through which the
Pure Self conceals itself and projects forth the universe
as an objective reality. It is the Power in the Subject
by means of which it is able to objectify itself.
In the dualistic systems however the material
principle has an independent existence as distinct from
spirit, so that in whatever manner it is conceived its
eternal character is vouchsafed. If, for instance, in
Sankhya Purusa is eternal, Prakrti is no less so. Simil-
arly in ^ri-Vaisnavaism Acit is as real as Cit and
Ifvara, and in Southern (^aivaism Bindu is co-eternal
with Qva and <£akti. The other schools including
Nyaya-Vai$esika are similar. Consequently, even
when the Self is freed from the limitations incidental
to its mundane existence and becomes restored to its
pristine purity the material principle—Prakrti, Acit
or Bindu—persists as before. Only the association bet-
ween the two which caused all the trouble disappears.
It is clear that in every system of thought Hindu,
Buddhist or Jaina, except Carvaka, the material prin-
ciple is recognised as evil. Conceived as a power or
potency only or even as an entity it is the source of all
misery and tribulation. Every school advocates there-
fore that the Self to be released from the bondage of the
world must be freed in every way from its association
with matter. Moksa is impossible so long as Matter
sways the Spirit through its functions. Every code of
ethico-spiritual discipline is so designed as to ensure
gradual purification of the Self from the dominating
effects of accumulated matter in the form of error,
doubt, vdsand karmans etc. and guarding the purified
y
Self against further inroads of the latter.
It is very difficult to define Matter in its widest
sense and to differentiate it from the Self. In the
-ill CONCEPTION OF MATTER
Safikhya system spirit is all consciousness and matter
is the universal background, eternally existing in a
state of stable equilibrium as a potentiality of multiple
phenomena and sometimes also as a light medium for
the expression as it were of, the Conscious Principle
endowed with the properties of motion and resistance.
If it veils, it also unveils, and both the functions are
effected through motion. The Ramanujas—in fact
all the Paiicaratrites—conceive of matter as pure and
impure; and they hold impure matter (that is, Prakrit)
to be responsible for the conscious souls' limitations,
but pure matter or tyddha Sattva is compatible with the
pure spirit (Cit and Ifvara), so that it is believed to per-
sist on the spiritual plane—which plane itself is made
of pure matter. This form of matter does not obstruct
knowledge and bliss and attaches to the Self for ever.
The necessity of assuming such matter is that of exten-
sion—as without this there could be no space or ob-
jective existence. All the Vaisnava philosophies have
had to admit this. The Tantrists also—£aivas, £aktas
etc.—admit this. The Southern (Jaivaism believes in
Bindu which as pure is Mahdmdyd and as impure is
Maya. Mahdmdyd is pure matter—the constitutive subs-
tance of the pure planes. The Advaitins—Aupanisada,
(Jakta, £aiva, or Buddhist—conceive of Matter as an
obscuring or limiting power of Reality which has there-
fore to be transcended.
It is hard to say that lack of consciousness is charac-
teristic of mattery for in that case the Pure Self would
have to be described as material. The Vai^esikas
are usually subjected to a bitter criticism on account
of their view that the Self in its pure condition or Mukti
is without consciousness and hence it is tauntingly
likened to a log of wood or a block of stone and nothing
more. To the Nyaya-Vai$e?ika consciousness etc, are
indeed qualities of the Self, but they are not essential^
they ate produced in the Self on account of its special
