Deivathin Kural # 81 of (Vol 2) of 09 Feb 2008.

Om Namah Sivaya.

Deivathin Kural # 81 of (Vol 2) of 09 Feb 2008.

(Note 1. We are to remind the readers that herein, 'he' as a word stands for 'she' as well. When Tamil or Sanskrit words are transliterated in English, the single vowel will indicate a short utterance and a double vowel will indicate a longer pronounciation. Words in Sanskrit script not being available, the transliteration spellings and thereby the pronounciation, especially of names may be at variance from what it should be! I offer my sincere apologies for the likely errors, as the one doing the translation. ---KTSV Sarma. Note 2. It may please be noted that the talk is dated some time in the late 1930's to early 60's.

NYAYAM: YUKTI SASTRAM.

(Continued from Deivathin Kural # 80 of (Vol 2) of 07 Feb 2008.)

17. To refresh our memories, we had considered that all the things in the world, that is, 'Padartha'(which also means the word-meaning), are of two varieties, one is being or 'Bhava' and the other is not-being or 'Abhaava'. Of the first variety of existing things, there could be Dravya, Karma, Guna, Samanya, Visesha, Samavaaya and all of them could also be the non-existing Abhaava, the seventh of the Padartha. We also saw that the first three are 'Sat', which can be physically observed, while the last four are not physical material but, relative qualities only. Amongst the first three Padartham, Dravya is the material that can be by itself, whereas, Karma and Guna; will always be dependent on a Dravya. Then we found that Dravya is classified into nine categories namely, Prithvi, Appu, Tejas, Vayu, Akasa, Kaala, Dik, Atma and Manas. They are, Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space, Time, Direction, Soul and Mind; respectively.

18. The first five of the Padarthas, namely, Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space, are also known as the Pancha Boothas. They have five corresponding senses in the physical body. Eyes capable of sight; Ears capable of hearing; Tongue which can taste; Nose which can smell; and Skin capable of recognizing touch. (Actually touch is not only of the Skin. All over the body there are nerve ends, which recognise pleasant stimulation and pain. They are there in the skin as well as in the muscles, by which we cognise things like stomach pain and heart ache!) The interesting point about this is that other than touch, which is spread all over, the other senses are specific capabilities of a particular sense organ. Only eyes are capable of sight. You cannot see with anything else. Ears cannot taste. The wonderful music that can be enjoyed by the ears cannot be sensed by the eyes or nose! The taste of a culinary delight known to the tongue, could be stinking unless aided by the nose. But the nose could never know that sugar is sweet.

19. Thus the Eyes, notes the shape, colour and movement. Variations in the sound, such as pitch, layam, ragam, volume and the presence or lack of harmony, are recognised by the Ears. Variations in smell, it's pleasantness and intensity are noticed by the Nose. The tongue is capable of differentiating and recognising six different tastes. Softness and hardness and temperature of touch is cognised by the nerve ends all over the body. These are known as Gnanendriyas or sense organs, which make us aware of the outer world. Outer world includes one's own body too! For the five Indriyas, Roopa(Form or Shape), Rasa(Taste), Ganda(Smell), Sparsa(Touch) and Sabda(Sound), are the Vishaya or Subject Matters. These five vishayas/gunas are in the five boothas. Earth has all the five gunas. It has shape or form, smell, taste, sound and can be cognised by touch. The special to Earth is the smell. Water has form, taste, touch and sound. You can hear a rivulet and the ocean. The only thing water does not have is smell. Mixed with other things it can smell too. People living near the Cooum river in Chennai, know this! Special to water is taste. If your tongue is dry, you will not know the taste. Fire has no idea of smell and taste. It has only, form, sound and touch. Touch is special to the fire. Air has no shape, taste or smell. It can carry bad smell to your nose. It has only sound and touch. Touch is it's speciality. Space or Sky, has only one of the senses related to it, that is sound. Till recently, sound was thought to be only due to movements in air. That it is a guna of akasa/space, was not clearly understood by modern scientists, till very recently, though our understanding of it is as old as the Vedas.

20. Let us recapitulate. Akasam with only one guna of sound; with sound, add touch for Air; with sound and touch, having visible form is Agni / Tejas; with these three add rasam or taste for Appu / Water; finally Earth, having sound, touch, form, taste and gandam / smell is the Earth / Prithvi---these five make the Pancha Maha Boothas. For five Gunas, the Ashrayam are the five Boothas as dravyas.

21. Balance dravyas being mentioned by Nyaya are Kalaa or Time; Dik or direction; Atma and Manas or Mind. Kaala includes various expressions of Time as second, minute, hour, day, week, month, season, year, era, millennia, chatur-yuga, kalpa and so on in the macro scale and milli, micro and nano seconds, on the sub-divisions of the second; earlier or later in time, such as B.C. and A.D.! The principle of Dik, is inclusive all possible efforts at measuring Space / Desam such as; up, down, here, there, where, right, left, north, east, south, west and so on. Next dravya is the Manas or mind, which can know or try to know all this. Next dravya is the Atma, who has the mind. Here too there are two. One is the idiot / dope / fool / play acting / Atma, that is the Jeevatma. The other is the omniscient, omnipotent, non-idiot / non-dope / non-fool, Paramatma. Many unreal Jeevatmas and One real Paramatma. The one uninvolved, observer-witness Paramatma and many involved sufferers Jeevatmas. These last two are the only Animate, Aware, entities with Life in them! All the other Dravyas are inanimate, lifeless! There is a word 'Arivu' in Tamil. The word-meaning / padartham of 'Arivu' is PACK an angram of, Perception, Awareness, Consciousness and Knowledge. Vedantam says that this Arivu or Gnanam is Atma. But as per Nyayam, this Gnanam is one of the gunas. Atma is a dravyam, gnanam its guna.

22. Paramatma being Omniscient, He is said to be the Super-Arivu. Jeevatmas have some Gnanam. That is why we have a name as, 'kinchitagyars', with limited Arivu. Kinchit means paltry. Paramatma is 'Sarvagyar'. We are the repository / ashraya of a mix of both Gnana and Agnana. Paramatma is all Arivu. Nyaya Sastram says that 'Atma is Vibhu', that is all pervading. But it does not talk of the differences between Jeevatma and Paramatma. Because as per this Sastra, Arivu is individually present in each Jeeva's Mind, which is a mixed bag, causing Happiness and Sorrow. Guna is divided into 24 types and Karma is divided into Five types in Nyaya Sastra. (We have not gone into the details of this as yet.) 'If you have this padartha knowledge, you will get to know the truth and will get dispassion towards all untruth and thereby attain to liberation', is the logic of Nyaya. It will be a state of total equanimity. Even in our approach to that state of Moksha of Vedanta, Nyaya will be of much use.

23. We get to know the Five Boothas, Jeevatma, Mind. That is alright! But how to know Paramatma? He is the one not easily understood. (Mind is also a big enigma. We will come to that later. I may be jumping the gun. But, Periyaval is not talking about that, just now.) To know Paramatma, we need the Anumanam. For all other things, direct evidence( ie., pratyatcha pramanam), is available. Sruthi ie., Veda says that there is Easwara. So He must be there. To establish that fact through Anumanam, is the job of Nyayam.

24. Let us look at a small Anumanam. This chair that I am sitting on must have been made by a carpenter, whom I may not know. But, that is no reason to doubt his very existance or claim that the making of this chair is a lie! We have known or seen other chairs being made. From that, we get to know that there must have been someone who has made this chair. Exactly similarly, there is someone who is the maker of this whole Universe, who is all knowing, all capable, and very loving too. To consider all the arguements for and against such a statement and come to a conclusion through proper Anumanam, is the job of Nyaya Sastra.

25. Other than the direct evidence of Pratyaksha, and guess work of Anumanam, there are two more Pramanas known as Upamanam and Sabdam. What is Upamanam? What we do not know, we get to know through comparison and contrast. There is an animal known as 'Kavayam'. We are told that it looks like a buffalo, but it is not that. It occurs in the wild. Then one day we are moving through a forest area and happen to see an animal which looks like a buffalo but not one. We know now that it is 'Kavayam'. This is Upamanam.

26. Sabda Pramanam, is the evidence of the Vedas and Elders spoken words. What ever Vedam says and the words of the elders should be taken as the truth. Vedam is considered as the very breath of Easwara. Nyayam holds that belief and so should be taken on face value. That is a Sabda Pramanam. Similarly, words of elders who are an epitome and embodiment of truth, have to be included as a Sabda Pramanam. These four Pramanas are also accepted in Kumarila Bhattar's Meemamsai. In addition, he talks of two more known as Arthaapattii and Anupalabdi, which are also acceptable in Adwaita Vedantam too.

27. In our books of Sastra, there is a clear example for Arthaapatti. It says for example that, "the fat Devadatta does not eat in the day time". It is like two negative numbers becoming positive, on multiplication. It means that evidently Devadatta is having his full in the night! This is Arthaapatti or contra-indication. This cannot be Anumanam because there is no indicator / lingam. Upamanam is also clearly different from Arthaapatti. We recognise the wild animal in the forest as 'Kavayam', on comparison with the discription from someone who knows. There is no contra-indication there.

28. Last of the Pramanam is the Anupalabdi. In it we gain knowledge of a thing's absence. We have seen the last of Padarthas, 'Abhaavam'. The process by which we get to know about that ' Abhaavam' is Anupalabdi. We tell someone to check if there is an Elephant in the place where it is normally kept. He does not see any Elephant there. Exactly as we get to know about the presence of the Elephant, we get to know of it's absence. To get to know the truth of the absence by it's not being there. Elephant is not seen. But the Elephant's absence is seen. This truth becomes known, because the Elephant is not seen. Thus when a thing is not seen, reveals the truth; it is known as Anupalabdi!

29. Let us take stock of the situation:-
(a) Nyayam does not have the concept of Arthaapatti and Anupalabdi.
(b) Both of them are accepted in Adwaita Vedantam and Bhatta Madam of Meemamsai.
(c) In Prabhakara's Siddhantam(a branch of Meemamsai), Anupalabdi is not there.

(KTSV Sarma adds:- Do not worry about totally absorbing all the concepts and remembering them. Simply read them all. Do not ignore it either, unread once even! Let it be in some corner of your mind. You are not preparing for an examination. But rest assured that, it has it's own inexhorable logic of taking you to the final destination and come back to your mind as when needed!)

Sambhomahadeva.