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Bronkhorst - Some Uses Of Dharma In Classical Indian Philosophy (2004)

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Some Uses Of Dharma In Classical Indian Philosophy

Johannes Bronkhorst
Journal of Indian Philosophy 32: 733–750, 2004.
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

The word dharma is used in a variety of meanings. In philosophical parlance it is mainly used in two totally different ways, which one might call the Buddhist and the Brahmanical way. This article will briefly present the way in which the Buddhists came to use the term (usually in the plural), then sketch the development which the Brahmanical concept of dharma (singular) underwent in the hands of the adherents of the Vaiśeṣika philosophy.

With regard to Buddhism we can be brief. 1 The word dharma here came to be used for the items collected in lists in what is known by the name Abhidharma. These lists may originally have contained no more than items considered important to be memorized, often mental states. For our present purposes all that counts is that when at last one of the Buddhist schools decided to put order into the inherited teachings, it promoted the items thus collected, the dharmas, to the status of being the ultimate, and only, constituents of all that exists.

This revision, which amounted to a philosophical revolution, apparently took place in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, at some time during the centuries preceding the common era, and the outcome was primarily preserved in the texts of the Sarvāstivāda school of Abhidharma. This intellectual revolution did more than just turn dharmas into elements of existence. It imposed a thoroughly atomistic vision on common sense reality, thus reducing the latter to non-existence. All complex entities - which includes virtually everything that we are familiar with from experience - were stated to be non-existent, precisely because they were nothing beyond their constituent elements. The impetus to this radical rejection of common sense reality must have come from the Buddhist doctrine according to which no person exists. What we believe is a person is made up of numerous mental and physical states, precisely the things known as dharmas. 2 That is to say, the person does not exist, but the elements that constitute it do. Or more explicitly: the person does not exist because it is complex; its ultimate constituent elements on the other hand do exist. The same reasoning was applied to other things that have constituent elements.

It will be clear that this kind of logic inevitably leads to the conclusion that only dharmas exist, and that these dharmas cannot themselves harbour constitutive elements. That is to say, the dharmas are irreducible and are for that reason the ultimate constituents of the things that make up phenomenal reality. Strictly speaking the dharmas are the only things that exist, for the objects of phenomenal reality, being made up of more elementary constituents, do not.

Seen in this way, the ontological position of the Buddhist dharmas can easily be defined: they are the only things that really exist. The Sarvāstivādins had more to say about their dharmas, to be sure. Their thoroughly atomistic approach led them to another postulate: the dharmas are momentary. They also made an effort to enumerate all dharmas in an exhaustive list and to categorize them. They went to the extent of deviating from traditional forms of categorization and introducing a new system, called Pañcavastuka, which far more comprehensively summarized all the dharmas in five categories. 3 Nor did they hesitate to introduce newly invented dharmas which they felt were required to arrive at a coherent vision of the world. All this led them into sometimes frighteningly complex arguments, which have the unfortunate tendency of obscuring from view the overall vision that is hidden behind it.

This particular understanding of the dharmas as elements of existence, the only things that really exist, characterizes later developments in Buddhist thought, even in philosophical developments (such as the Madhyamaka philosophy) that came to reject the existence of the dharmas. The position of these latter, called dharmanairātmya “non-reality of the dharmas”, amounts to a radical denial of all that exists, a position in which even the last remaining anchors in reality, i.e. the dharmas, are removed. In an important way the denial of the dharmas was a continuation of the original denial of empirical reality that characterized the postulation of dharmas as the only existing entities. The denial of composite objects and personalities justified, all by itself, statements of the kind that no Buddha exists or has ever existed, which we find, for example, in the Buddhist Prajñāpāramitā literature. Denying the existence of the dharmas hardly sounds radical in a Buddhism that has already denied the existence of its founder.

Within the Brahmanical philosophies the word dharma is not used as in Buddhism. Fundamentally dharma is here something like ‘merit’.

As such there is nothing noteworthy in the concept of dharma in the Brahmanical philosophical systems. Some of these - first of all the Vaiśeṣika - tried to specify the concept. This led to the developments which will be outlined here.

dharma occupies a prominent position in the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra. This text begins with the announcement that dharma will be explained (athāto dharmaṃ vyākhyāsyāmaḥ). This suggests that dharma plays a fundamental role in this school of thought. However, when we consider this philosophy in its classical form, we find that dharma is not so fundamental after all.

The classical doctrine of Vaiśeṣika finds expression in Praśasta’s Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, also known by the name Praśastapādabhāṣya. This text divides all that exists into six categories, called ‘substance’ (dravya), ‘quality’ (guṇa), ‘activity’ (karman), ‘universal’ (sāmānya), ‘specificity’ (viśeṣa) and ‘inherence’ (samavāya) respectively. It states that knowledge of the essence of these categories, through the similarities and differences between them, is the cause of the highest good. 4 dharma and its opposite and companion adharma are classified among the qualities; they are qualities that can only reside in a single substance, ‘soul’ (ātman), not in other substances.

dharma and adharma are not the only qualities that can reside only in the soul. The text provides a complete list of such qualities: knowledge (buddhi), pleasure (sukha), pain (duḥkha), desire (icchā), repulsion (dveṣa), effort (prayatna), dharma and adharma; 5 subliminal impressions (samskāra) might be included in this list, even though other aspects of samskāra allow it to reside in other substances as well. Together, these qualities of the soul account for the psychological functioning of a person. Knowledge, which is experience, causes pleasure or pain; these give rise to desire and repulsion, respectively. Desire and repulsion bring about effort (prayatna), which in its turn brings about bodily activities aiming to reestablish or avoid the sources of pleasure and pain, respectively. This leads to new experiences, etc. etc. A further effect of these activities is the production of dharma and adharma, which determine one’s future state. Correct knowledge, which is primarily knowledge of the Vaiśeṣika philosophy, will free a person from passion, as a result of which in the end no more dharma and adharma will be produced and liberation from rebirth will be obtained. 6 dharma and adharma obviously play some kind of intermediary role in all this. dharma in particular can help a person some way in the direction of final liberation, but not all the way, for all the remaining dharma has to be consumed before liberation can take place. That is to say: the soul quality called dharma is an important causal factor with respect to liberation, 7 but it would not be justified to say that dharma, or knowledge of dharma, brings it about. Yet this is what the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra appears to say, as we will see below. For the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, as we have seen, the cause of the highest good, i.e. of liberation, is knowledge of the Vaiśeṣika categories. It is true that this knowledge has to follow a number of preparatory conditions, which are described in some detail in the text; this does not change the fact that the clinching element is knowledge.

There is one passage in the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha which appears to use the word dharma in a way that differs from its classical usage. This passage reads: 8

(1) *dravyaguṇakarmasāmānyaviśeṣasamavāyānāṃ ṣaṇṇāṃ padārthānāṃ
sādharmyavaidharmyābhyāṃ tattvajñānaṃ nīhśreyasahetuḥ |
tac ceśvaracodanābhivyaktād dharmād eva |
(WI p. 1 Section 2)

Knowledge of the essence of the six categories - viz. substance (dravya), quality (guṇa), activity (karman), universal (sāmānya), specificity (viśeṣa) and inherence (samavāya) - , by way of the similarity and dissimilarity [between them], is the cause of the highest good. That [knowledge comes about] as a result of dharma that is manifested through the injunctions of the Lord.”

The last part of this passage is not free from difficulties. If we assume that here, too, dharma designates the quality of the soul described above, how then are we supposed to understand that liberating knowledge can only result from dharma which is manifested through the injunctions of the Lord? What could it mean that this specific quality of the soul is manifested through the injunctions of the Lord? Does God utter injunctions to the effect that dharma that is already present in a soul must manifest itself? The Padārthadharmasaṅgraha contains no hint suggesting that any such manifestations of dharma ever take place. And the early commentators do not provide help either.

There is however an obvious answer to these questions, if only we are willing to look outside the Vaiśeṣika system. Mīmāṃsā-sūtra 1.1.2 defines dharma as follows: codanālakṣaṇo ‘rtho dharmaḥ. Frauwallner (1968: 17) translates this: “Der Dharmaḥ ist etwas Nützliches, dessen Kennzeichen die (vedischen) Weisungen sind.” In other words: dharma is characterized by codanā in the Mīmāmsā Sūtra, just as it is manifested by codanā in the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha. This strongly suggests that Praśasta here uses the term dharma as it was used in Mīmāṃsā, and not as he uses it everywhere else in his Padārthadharmasaṅgraha. That is to say, dharma in this passage of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha does not refer to the classical Vaiśeṣika idea of dharma, a quality of the soul, but to the Mīmāṃsā idea of dharma. It is true that Praśasta adds one word to mark his difference from the Mīmāṃsā position. He prefixes the word īsvara ‘God’ to codanā, thus indicating that he, unlike the Mīmāṃsakas, looks upon Vedic injunctions as coming from God. This by itself is not surprising, because Praśasta appears to have been one of the first, if not the first, to introduce the notion of a creator God into the Vaiśeṣika system. 9

This different use of the term dharma in one single passage of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha suggests that the new Vaiśeṣika understanding of dharma as a quality of the soul replaced an earlier one, within the Vaiśeṣika school itself, that was close to, or identical with, the Mīmāṃsā idea of dharma. The present passage would then preserve a trace of this earlier usage.

Various considerations confirm the view that the classical Vaiśeṣika understanding of dharma as a quality of the soul represents a change of doctrine within the school that had taken place at some time before Praśasta but after its earliest beginnings. Consider the following:

(a) The way in which the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha presents the qualities, and dharma in particular, allows us to conclude that much had changed between the time of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra (since the surviving text has undergone various modifications, the expression “time of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra” is imprecise) and that of Praśasta. The Padārthadharmasaṅgraha initially cites Vaiśeṣika-sūtra 1.1.5, which enumerates seventeen qualities. 10 dharma and adharma do not figure among these. The Padārthadharmasaṅgraha then adds seven more qualities (which cover dharma and adharma, see below), which it claims are covered in the sūtra by the particle ca. It seems safe to conclude that the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra known to Praśasta did not yet include dharma among the qualities. The same is true of all its surviving versions.

(b) The Padārthadharmasaṅgraha says that it enumerates seven additional qualities, but in fact it enumerates only six items: heaviness (gurutva), fluidity (dravatva), viscosity (sneha), samskāra (no single translation is possible; see Kapani (1992-1993: I: 277) ff.), ‘the unseen’ (adṛṣṭa) and sound (śabda). 11 The solution to this riddle lies in the fact that the single item adṛṣṭa stands for the two qualities dharma and adharma, as is clear from other passages in the same book: the enumeration of qualities of the soul, for example, does include dharma and adharma rather than adṛṣṭa 12 and dharma and adharma are sometimes used to refer back to adṛṣṭa 13. Adṛṣṭa is a term that occurs a number of times in the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra, primarily in the fifth chapter, most often to explain physical processes: “adrșta moves objects in ordeals and magnetic processes; it causes extraordinary movements of earth and water, the circulation of water in trees, the upward flaming of fire, the horizontal blowing of wind or air, the initial movements of atoms and ‘minds’ (manas, in the process of forming new organisms)” (Halbfass, 1991: 311). Halbfass (1991: 312 f.) further points out that the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra nowhere states that adṛṣṭa and dharma/adharma are identical, nor that they are different. He draws attention to the fact that the Nyāya Bhāsya of Vātsyāyana knows dharma and adharma as being inherent in the soul, but does not use the term adṛṣṭa as a synonym for these two. This term is here rather used with reference to a theory that is rejected and that maintains that there is adṛṣṭa in the material atoms (aṇu), as well as in the ‘mind’ (manas), 14 and that gives them the kinetic impulse needed for the formation of bodies and so on. Also the commentator Vyomaśiva on the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha is acquainted with, and rejects, the theory that adṛṣṭa resides in atoms and not in the soul. Halbfass (1991: 315) assumes that adṛṣṭa “may primarily have been a gapfiller in the causal explication of the universe”. 15 We may conclude that the classical notions of dharma and adharma as qualities of the soul absorbed the notion of adṛṣṭa which was initially different from these two.

It is clear from the above that the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra as known to Praśasta, just like the versions known to us today, did not count dharma and adharma among the qualities. And yet dharma plays a central role in the first three sūtras of this text, 16 which read as follows (for an interpretation, see below):

(i) athāto dharmaṃ vyākhyāsyāmaḥ
(ii) yato ‘bhyudayaniḥśreyasasiddhih sa dharmaḥ
(iii) tadvacanād āmnāyasya prāmāṇyam 17

Sūtra (i) announces that dharma will be explained, presumably in the remainder of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra; sūtra (ii) adds that on the basis of dharma one reaches abhyudaya and nihśreyasa (to be understood as residence in Brahmaloka and liberation respectively, according to the commentator Candrānanda); while sūtra (iii) appears to state that the Veda is authoritative because it teaches dharma. 18 The dharma taught by the Veda is not, of course, the quality of the soul accepted by later Vaiśeșikas. It must be something very similar to the dharma which the Mīmāṃsakas believed was taught in the Veda. And indeed, if we assume that Praśasta’s characterization of dharma as īśvaracodanābhivyakta ‘manifested by the injunctions of the Lord’ continues an earlier Vaiśeșika tradition, we can conclude that early Vaiśeșika shared in most essential respects its notion of dharma with ritual Mīmāṃsā. 19

This does not necessarily entail that all occurrences of the word dharma in the Vaiśeșika Sūtra have to be interpreted as in Mīmāṃsā. One should never forget that the Vaiśeșika Sūtra is not the unitary composition of one single individual. Already before the time of Praśasta, this text had undergone numerous modifications. There is, for example, reason to think that sūtras had been added and that their original order had been changed. 20 It is not therefore impossible that the new meaning of dharma manifests itself already in some parts of the Vaiśeșika Sūtra as we know it. At some places (VS(C) 4.2.5: dharmaviśeṣāt; 6.2.18: icchādveṣapūrvikā dharmādharmayoh pravṛttiḥ) one has indeed the impression that dharma, already in the surviving Vaiśeșika Sūtra, is used in its classical sense, referring to a quality of the soul. This merely suggests that the new meaning of dharma, its understanding as a quality of the soul, had been introduced into Vaiśeṣika already before Praśasta. Unfortunately no evidence is known to me that would allow us to determine with more precision exactly when this change may have taken place.

How is the term dharma used in Mīmāṃsā? We have already seen that dharma is “characterized by injunctions (codanā)” (Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.2). Beyond this, the Mīmāṃsā Bhāṣya of Śabara, the classical text for this school of Vedic interpretation, says remarkably little about it. Indeed, while introducing sūtra 1.1.2 Śabara states that experts have varying opinions as to what is dharma. 21 Sūtra 1.1.2 (codanālakṣaṇo ‘rtho dharmaḥ; see above) is meant to resolve this issue. dharma is what one gets to know through Vedic revelation, which consists in injunctions. What do we learn through these injunctions? Primarily what activities - sacrificial activities - lead to heaven. The intermediary between a sacrifice and heaven (which is reached long after the termination of the sacrifice) is represented by the mysterious apūrva, which guarantees the connection between the two. dharma, apūrva and codanā are closely connected, and in one passage Śabara states in so many words that one speaks about codanā to indicate apūrva. 22 Elsewhere he identifies dharma with ‘the Agnihotra etc.’, i.e., with ritual activity. 23 A passage in Jayanta Bhaṭ̣a’s Nyāyamañjarī observes that the old Mīmāṃsakas identify dharma with apūrva which is without substratum (nirādhāra) and is produced by ritual activity, whereas the followers of Sabara identify it with ritual activity itself. 24 Yoshimizu (2000: 163 n. 27) - drawing attention to a passage in the Sābara Bhāṣya on sūtra 2.1.1 where dharma and apūrva are identified - points out that Sabara, measured by Jayanta’s criteria, is an ‘old Mīmāṃsaka” rather than a “follower of Sabara”. An analysis of Sabara’s observations, on the other hand, seems to suggest that he may think of apūrva as having a special connection with or even as inhering in the human soul. 25

Halbfass (1991: 302, 334 n. 46), who draws attention to the abovementioned passage of the Nyāyamañjarī, also refers to some passages in other works where apūrva is supposedly a synonym of dharma. Not all these passages do however provide evidence for the presumed identification of dharma and apūrva in early Mīmāṃsā. Neither of the two passages from Bhartrhari’s Vākyapadīya which he refers to makes this identification. The first one (Vkp 3.7.34) does use the word apūrva, but does not mention dharma; the second (Vkp 3.8.37) uses neither of these two terms. The commentator Phullarāja on the first of these two verses 26 explains that, according to some, apūrva is identical with dharma / adharma and with adṛṣṭa. 27 The identification of dharma / adharma with adṛṣṭa suggests that Phullarāja does not here introduce us to “an old Mīmāṃsā theory of apūrva”, but to the classical Vaiśeṣika doctrine of dharma/adharma, with as added peculiarity that now apūrva is said to be the same as the Vaiśeṣika qualities of the soul known by those names.

Uddyotakara’s Nyāya Vārttika on Nyāya-sūtra 1.1.7, too, uses the term apūrva as a synonym of dharma and adharma. 28 As in the case of Phullarāja, this suggests that we are here confronted with a new interpretation of apūrva, which identifies it with the new Vaiśeṣika qualities of the soul called dharma and adharma. However, Uddyotakara is acquainted with a position which looks upon apūrva, and dharma and adharma, as being eternal. This eternal apūrva is supposedly manifested by people: 29 “Although apūrva is [one and] eternal, [only] the person who makes [it] manifest has [its] fruit. And ritual act is [done] for the sake of manifestation. And because it is [done] for manifestation, ritual act is not left unperformed. [For] it is seen that whatever is manifested gives its fruit only to the one who manifests it.” Kei Kataoka (2000) has recently argued that the notion of dharma as an eternal entity that is made manifest as a result of sacrificial activity was current among certain Mīmāṃsakas, and was at least sometimes identified with apūrva. Such a notion appears to be attributed to the Mīmāmsakas by authors as diverse as Bharthari (commentary on the Mahābhāṣya), 30 the author of the Vṛtti on Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadīya, 31 Simhasūri the commentator of Mallavādin’s Dvādaśāra-Nayacakra 32 and of course Uddyotakara. Also the chapter on Mīmāṃsā in Bhavya’s Madhyamakahṛdaya mentions apūrva and describes it as “to be manifested by [ritual] action”. 33 His auto-commentary Tarkajvālā, moreover, identifies apūrva with dharma. 34 Kataoka concludes from all this evidence that the theory which he calls dharma-abhivyakti-vāda must go back to the latter half of the 6th century.

It seems, then, that early Mīmāṃsā had rather hazy ideas about the precise nature of dharma. Later on, at least in part under the influence of classical Vaiśeṣika, it tried in various ways to give a more precise meaning to this originally imprecise term.

We have seen that the ontological concerns of the Vaiśeṣika school of thought made them specify what exactly dharma is. In doing so, they ended up with a notion of dharma as a quality of the soul, a notion which, as a result of this transformation, had moved a long way from the Mīmāṃsā understanding of this term which they started from. Mīmāṃsakas after Śabara were not uninterested in the new qualities dharma and adharma. It appears, indeed, that Brahmanical thinkers of the time felt pressed to specify what kind of thing dharma really is. Where earlier thinkers of the Vaiśeṣika and Mīmāṃsā schools used the term dharma in a rather general sense expressing something perhaps not too dissimilar to English ‘virtue, merit, appropriateness’ - later thinkers of these two schools felt obliged to specify its precise ontological status. In the case of Vaiśeṣika this is not surprising, for ontology has been a central concern of this school, perhaps from the beginning; the presence of an important element in its philosophy (dharma is mentioned in its first sūtra) whose ontological status was less than clear posed a challenge which the school had to come to grips with. Mīmāṃsā was perhaps under less pressure; yet it did not escape from the ontological concerns of its fellow philosophers.

By way of conclusion some few words can be said about the other classical schools of Brahmanical philosophy. Sāṃkhya - which here includes the so-called Yoga philosophy - underwent a strong influence of Vaiśeṣika in matters psychological, but its efforts to precisely define what kind of thing dharma was did not lead to noteworthy results. dharma and adharma are explained as parts of buddhi, one of the evolutes of primary matter (pradhāna); the constraints of the system hardly allowed for another possibility. The Yuktidīpikā, for example, describes dharma as follows: 35 “The disposition which is part of [the constituent called] sattva, and which resides in the buddhi as a result of carrying out acts that have been prescribed in the Veda and in the sacred tradition, is called dharma.” The so-called Vedānta philosophy presents itself as a better form of Mīmāṃsā, but one which, unlike ritual Mīmāṃsā, does not study dharma but Brahma. Brahma-sūtra 1.1.1 reads athāto brahmajijñāsā, which is an adaptation of Mīmāṃsā-sūtra 1.1.1 athāto dharmaijjñāsā. The Śārīraka Mīmāṃsā - later also called Uttara-Mīmāṃsā - builds in an essential way on ritual Mīmāṃsā, to which it has left the study of dharma; it can now concentrate on Brahma. dharma does not therefore play as crucial a role in it.

APPENDIX

The following passage occurs, as we have seen, in the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha:

(1) dravyaguṇakarmasāmānyaviśeṣasamavāyānāṃ ṣaṇ̣āṃ padārthānāṃ sādharmyavaidharmyābhyāṃ tattvajñānaṃ niḥśreyasahetuh//tac ceśvaracodanābhivyaktād dharmād eva / (WI p. 1 Section 2)

It is not possible to seriously discuss this passage without taking into consideration passage (2), which is a sūtra in one of the surviving versions of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra:

(2) dharmaviśeṣaprasūtād dravyaguṇakarmasāmānyaviśeṣasamavāyānāṃ padārthānāṃ sādharmyavaidharmyābhyāṃ tattvajñānān niḥśreyasam (VS(Ś) 1.1.4)

This is sūtra 1.1.4 in the version of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra commented upon by Śaṅkara Miśra. It does not occur in the other surviving versions of this text. 36 We will refer to it as “the fourth sūtra”.

The similarity between (1) and (2) is undeniable, and we have to accept that the two did not come into existence independently of each other. The question is: Which one influenced, and therefore preceded, the other?

Erich Frauwallner (1984: 39) argued that ‘the fourth sūtra’ (2) was composed under the influence of Padārthadharmasaṅgraha passage (1). He further argued that ‘the fourth sūtra’ (2) is indispensible after the three sūtras that precede it, and must therefore be accepted as belonging in their company, in spite of the fact that it has only been preserved in the version commented upon by Śankara Miśra. These four initial sūtras, Frauwallner argued, must have been composed after the original character of Vaiśeṣika had been modified around the time of Praśasta. The original beginning of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra was different, and Frauwallner makes an attempt to reconstruct it.

Frauwallner’s arguments that original Vaiśeṣika was not interested in concepts like liberation and that such ideas, along with the idea of a creator God, did not enter the system until around the time of Praśasta, have found little favour among more recent scholars. Halbfass (1986, 1992: 69 f.) has described Frauwallner’s thesis about the “original beginning” of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra as “challenging, but not convincing”. Houben (1994) criticizes Frauwallner’s position according to which originally Vaiśeṣika was a pure philosophy of nature without interest in liberation. This implies that the beginning of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra may have been as it is today, already before the time of Praśasta.

This raises the question whether ‘the fourth sūtra’ may be older than Praśasta. This question is to be distinguished from the other one as to whether “the fourth sūtra” is inseparable from the three initial sūtras of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra. If it is inseparable from those three, the ‘fourth sūtra’ must be as old as the other ones, and therefore older than Praśasta. But it may conceivably be older than Praśasta without being inseparable from the three initial sūtras. It may conceivably have existed as part of a commentary, or as a sūtra that was added long after the first three but still before Praśasta. The question as to how old the ‘fourth sūtra’ is must therefore be considered on its own, independently of speculations about its connection with other sūtras.

Isaacson (1995a: 234) is of the opinion that ”… there is no good reason to regard the sūtra as old”. In another publication (1995b: 757 n. 22) he criticizes Frauwallner: “Frauwallner’s keen philological instinct may perhaps have erred … It is precisely the absence of the expected enumeration of categories which is likely to be original here.

Indeed an enumeration of six categories would be suspect, for I think it very likely that in the earliest period of composition of sūtras the classical list of padārthas had not yet been settled on.” This last argument may be valid, and would show that the “fourth sūtra” cannot have belonged to the earliest period of composition of sūtras. This does not however help us all that much, for passages that existed before Praśasta do not for that reason necessarily belong to the earliest period of Vaiśeṣika. There is indeed some reason to think that Praśasta, if he knew passage (2) at all, did not recognize it as a sūtra, this because Praśasta normally clearly indicates that he considers something a sūtra. 37 He might then have cited it to justify (1). This does not exclude the possibility that (2) had once been a sūtra that, because of its length, came to be looked upon as part of a commentary. 38 We here find ourselves in the midst of speculations from among which the available evidence does not allow us to make a sensible choice.

Let us look somewhat more closely at passages (1) and (2). Both agree that knowledge of the essence of the Vaiśeṣika categories is the cause of the highest good. Both agree that this knowledge results from dharma. According to the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha this dharma is “manifested by the injunctions of the Lord” (Jha, 1915/1982: 16). The “fourth sūtra” (2) merely states that this dharma is special (dharmaviśesa).

An important difference between the two passages is that the former recognizes a creator God where the latter does not. It is known that the notion of a creator God entered Vaiśeṣika rather late (Bronkhorst, 1996). However, if one accepts the obvious, viz., that passages (1) and (2) are not independent of each other, it will be difficult to conclude from this that the ‘fourth sūtra’ (2) was composed under the influence of passage (1). As far as our knowledge of the development of Vaiśeṣika goes, the idea of a creator God was accepted by all subsequent texts of the school, certainly by all those that based themselves on the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha. It is hard to believe that the author of the ‘fourth sūtra’ - assuming that he composed this sūtra under the influence of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha - could leave out God and simply speak of a special dharma (dharmaviśesa). Influence in the opposite direction - the passage in the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha was composed under the influence of the ‘fourth sūtra’ (2) - avoids this difficulty.

This position is confronted with one difficulty. We had occasion to observe that the word dharma in passage (1) is closer to Mīmāṃsā and early Vaiśeṣika usage than to the classical Vaiśeṣika use of this term. The “fourth sūtra” (2), on the other hand, would seem to use the term in a way which agrees with classical Vaiśeṣika. The compound dharmaviśeṣa occurs several times in the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 39 but does not appear to be used in Mīmāṃsā. 40 Is this proof that the ‘fourth sūtra’ must be more recent than passage (1)?

It is not. We saw that passage (1) uses the word dharma archaically and is therefore something of an anachronism in the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha. We concluded from it that the classical meaning of dharma may have been introduced into Vaiśeṣika before Praśasta. The classical use of dharma in the ‘fourth sūtra’ does not therefore prove anything regarding its age.

If, then, we are forced to choose between these two possibilities: either the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha passage (1) influenced the “fourth sūtra” (2), or vice-versa, we may have to consider the second possibility as the more likely. The ‘fourth sūtra’ may be older than the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, and Praśasta may have known it, even if not as a sūtra. It is true that we may not be forced to make such a choice. The similarity between these two passages might be due to the fact that both were influenced by an earlier common source. Either way, it seems unlikely that the “fourth sūtra” was composed under the influence of passage (1).

NOTES

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ABBREVIATIONS

ABBREVIATIONS
DNCDvādaśāra Nayacakra of Mallavādin. Edited, with the commentary Nyāyāgamānusārṇi of Siṃhasūri Gaṇi Vādi Kṣamāśramaṇa, by Muni Jambūvijayajī, 3 parts, Bhavnagar: Sri Jain Atmanand Sabha, 1966, 1976, 1988.
GOSGaekwad’s Oriental Series, Baroda
NVNyāya Vārttika de Uddyotakara, in the following edition: Nyāyadarśanam with Vātsyāyana’s Bhāṣya, Uddyotakara’s Vārttika, Vācaspati Miśra’s Tātparyaṭikā & Viśvanātha’s Vṛtti.Chapter I, section I critically edited with notes by Taranatha NyayaTarkatirtha and chapters I-ii - V by Amarendramohan Tarkatirtha, with an introduction by Narendra Chandra Vedantatirtha. Calcutta: Metropolitan Printing & Publishing House, 1936.
ÖAWÖsterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
VkpBhartṛhari, Vākyapadīya, ed. W. Rau, Wiesbaden 1977
VSVaiśeṣika Sūtra
VS(C)Vaiśeṣikasūtra of Kaṇāda, with the Commentary of Candrānanda, critically edited by Muni Śrī Jambuvijayajī, second edition, Baroda: Oriental Research Institute, 1982 (GOS 136)
VS(Ś)Vaiśeṣṣika Sūtra in the version commented upon by Śaṅkara Miśra; for an edition see Sinha, 1911/1986.
WIWord Index to the Praśastapādabhāṣya: A complete word index to the printed editions of the Praśastapādabhāṣya, by Johannes Bronkhorst & Yves Ramseier, Delhi: MotilalBanarsidass, 1994
YDYuktidpīkā, ed. in Albrecht Wezler and Shujun Motegi, Yuktidpīkā: The most significant commentary on the Sāṃkhyakārikā, Vol. I, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998 (Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien, 44)

Faculté des Lettres

Section de langues et civilisations orientales Université de Lausanne BFSH 2 CH-1015 Lausanne Switzerland E-mail:Johannes.Bronkhorst@orient.unil.ch Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Footnotes

  1. The section on Buddhist dharmas heavily draws upon Bronkhorst (2000a). ↩

  2. Cp. Gethin’s understanding of dharma as “an instance of one of the fundamental physical or mental events that interact to produce the world as we experience it” (Wijeratne & Gethin, 2002: xix). ↩

  3. See Frauwallner (1963/1995). ↩

  4. The passage (WI p. 1 Section 2) is cited below. ↩

  5. WI p. 16 Section 80: tasya (=ātmanaḥ) guṇāh buddhisukhaduḥkhecchādveṣaprayatnadharmādharmasaṃskārasaṃkhyāparimānaprthaktvasaṃyogavibhāgāh. The remaining qualities of this list can also occur in other substances. ↩

  6. Bronkhorst (2000b: Section 4, Section 6) ↩

  7. Cp. WI p. 63 Section 308: kartuḥ priyahitamokṣahetuḥ [dharmah]. ↩

  8. Some editions omit ṣaṃā̄ others read sādharmyavaīdharmyatattvajñānaṃ; some again have “nodanā” for “codanā”. ↩

  9. Bronkhorst (1996). ↩

  10. WI p. 1 Section 5: guṇāś ca rūparasagandhasparśasaṃkhyāparimānaprthaktvasaṃyogavibhāgaparatvāparatvabuddhisukhaduḥkhecchādveṣaprayatnāś ceti kaṃhoktāh saptadaśa. (Some editions omit the first ca, one omits “saṃkhyā”, another one iti.) Compare this with VS(C) 1.1.5: rūparasagandhasparśāh sañkhyāh parimānāni prthaktvaṃ saṃyogavibhāgau paratvāparatve buddhayaḥ sukhaduḥkhe icchādveṣau prayatnaś ca guṇāh. ↩

  11. WI p. 1-2 Section 5: caśabdasamuccitāś ca gurutvadravatrasnehasaṃskārādṛ̣̣aśabdāh saptāiveṭy vaturvīnśatir gunāh. (Variants: one edition reads tu for ca, one omits saptaiva and reads eva for evaṃ, some read caturvīnśatīgunāh.) ↩

  12. See note 3, above. ↩

  13. E.g. WI p. 43 Section 228: … adṛ̣̣tāc ca; Section 231: … tat sarvaṃ saṃskāradharmābhyāṃ bhavati / … tat sarvam adharmasaṃskārābhyāṃ bhavati / ↩

  14. The Mimāṃsākosa (IV p. 2241) cites a passage from Prabhākara’s Bṛhatī according to which some consider dharma a quality of the buddhi, others a quality of the self (p. 26: dharmaṃ kecit buddhigunam manyante kecit ātmaguṇam). On p. 2249 it cites a line from Pārthasārathi Miśra’s Sāstradīpikā according to which dharma and adharma are fluctuations (vṛtti) of the internal organ (1.1.5.5, p. 114 1. 3: dharmādharmayoḥ antaḥkaranavrttitvāt). ↩

  15. For at least some Buddhist thinkers acintya appears to have played a similar role; see Kritzer (2002). ↩

  16. VS 1.1.1-3. These sūtras figure in all surviving versions of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra, i.e., the ones commented upon by Candrānanda, Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra and Śaṅkara Miśra respectively, as well as the two further recensions discovered and edited by Isaacson (1995a: 216, 270). About the question whether originally a fourth sūtra, now only preserved in the version commented upon by Śaṅkara Miśra, concluded this set, see the appendix. ↩

  17. VS(C) 1.1.3 has ā n n ā y a p r ā m ā n y a m. ↩

  18. The expression tadvacanāt has been interpreted to mean:
    (i) because Hiraṇyagarbha has uttered it (Candrānanda)
    (ii) because it teaches svarga and apavarga (Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra)
    (iii) because God has uttered it (Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra, Śaṅkara Miśra) (iv) because it teaches dharma (Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra, Śaṅkara Miśra)
    (v) because it teaches the self (Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra)
    There can hardly be any doubt that (iv) is by far the most natural understanding of this expression in its context. It leads to the following interpretation of the sūtra: “The Veda is authoritative because it teaches dharma.” ↩

  19. Thakur (1961: 3) suggests that dharma at the beginning of the Vaiśeṣika Sutra means padārthadharma, “property’ or ‘attribute’ of the different categories” (Houben, 1994: 732 n. 27). This seems unlikely. ↩

  20. See Bronkhorst (1993a, 1994). ↩

  21. Frauwallner (1968: 16): dharmaṃ prati hi vipratipannā bahuvidaḥ / kecid anyaṃ dharmam āhuh, kecid anyam ; ↩

  22. Śabara’s Bhāṣya on Mimāṃsā-sūtra 2.1.5 (Ānandāśrama edition p. 358): codanety apūrvaṃ brūmaḥ. Cited in Biardeau (1964: 92 n. 1). See further Yoshimizu (2000: 161 n. 16), on the interpretation of this sentence. ↩

  23. Śabara on Mimāṃsā-sūtra 1.1.5; Frauwallner (1968: 24): autpattikaḥ śabdasyārthena sambandhas tasya agnihotrādilakṣanasya dharmasya nimittaṃ pratyakṣādibhīr anavagatasya. ↩

  24. Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, Nyāyamañjarī (ed. Śukla I p. 255 1. 3-4; ed. Varadacharya I p. 664 1. 6-7): vṛddhanīmāṃsakāḥ yāgādikarmanirvarṭyam apūrvaṃ nāma dharmam abhivadanti, yāgādikarmaiva śābarā bruvate. Further p. 255 1. 8-9 / p. 664 1. 15-16: svargayāgāntarāāavartinaś ca sthirasya nirādhārasyāpūrvasya nihpramānakatvāt jarajjaiminiyapravādo ‘py apeśalaḥ. The first of these two positions finds expression in Mādhava’s Jaiminiyanyāyamālāvistara (2.1.1: apūrvasyāva dharmatvāt). Cp. Yoshimizu, 2000: 163 n. 27. ↩

  25. Bronkhorst (2000b: Section 13). I am not sure that the passage from Śabara’s Bhāṣya (on sūtra 7.1.7) referred to by Yoshimizu (2000: 151) is in contradiction with this idea. ↩

  26. Helārāja’s commentary on this and the following stanzas is not available, as indicated by the editor Subramania Iyer (1963: 261 n. 31). ↩

  27. Subramania Iyer (1963: 261 1. 12) (on Vkp 3.7.34): apūrvaṃ dharmādharmākhyam adṛ̣ṭasaṃjñakaṃ kecīd evaṃrūpaṃ taṃ sāmarthyalakṣaṇaṃ bhāvam āhah. ↩

  28. NV on 1.1.7, p. 175 1. 2-3: asiddham apūrvasyānityatvam / na prāyaṇānupapatteh / yadi dharmādharmau nityau bhavatah kasya prakṣayāt prāyaṇam iti / etc. ↩

  29. NV on 1.1.7, p. 175 1. 9-10: nityam apy apūrvaṃ yo ‘bhivyanakti tasya phalam, abhivyaktyarthā kriyeti, ato na kriyā̄opa iti / yena yad abhivyajyate tasyaira tat phaladātṛ bhavatīti dṛ̣ṭam /. Tr. Kataoka (2000: 170). ↩

  30. Bronkhorst, 1987: 25 1. 24-27: dharmaprayojano vā iti mīmāṃsakadarśanam / avasthita eva dharmaḥ / sa tv agnihotrādibhīr abhivyajyate / tatpreritas tu phalado bhavati / yathā svāmi bhrtyaih sevāyāṃ preryate phalaṃ praty evam ayaṃ niyamo dharmasya phalanirvṛttiṃ prati prayojaka iti /. Cf. Bronkhorst, 1989: 112 [383] ff.; Kataoka, 2000: 168. ↩

  31. Iyer, 1966: 224 1. 5-6 (on verse 1.136= Vkp 1.172): tatra kecid ācāryā manyante: … / śāstrānusṭhānāt tu kevalād dharmābhivyaktiḥ / … Kataoka (2000: 167-168). ↩

  32. DNC I p. 140 1. 25: … parasparaviśsṭābhir yajñasaṃsthābhir agniṣtomādibhīr iṣṭibhiś cābhivyaktavyā apūrvā api …; as emended in Kataoka (2000: 174). DNC I p. 141 1. 8: … dharmaḥ kriyābhivyaṅgya[h] … Kataoka (2000: 176). ↩

  33. Bhavya, Madhyamakahṛdaya 9.10: apūrvo ‘pi kriyāvyaṅgyah kriyā mokṣe ‘pi sādhanam / somapānādikā vidvān nirjayed antakaṃ yayā // “Moreover, apūrva is to be manifested by [ritual] action, and ritual action such as drinking soma etc. are the means to [attain] liberation (mokṣa). By means of such [ritual action] a knowing person may overcome death.” Cp. Kawasaki (1977: 10-11); Lindtner (1997: 96-97, 1999: 254-255, 2001: 93). ↩

  34. See Kawasaki (1977: 10 n. 9). ↩

  35. YD p. 191 1. 33-35: tatra śrutismṛtivihitānāṃ karmaṇām anuṣṭhānād buddhyavasthah sattvāvayava āśayabhūto dharma ity ucyate. Cp. Bronkhorst (2000b: 56). ↩

  36. The Trivandrum manuscript edited by Isaacson (1995a: 270, 1995b: 757) has sādhanāny asya dravyagumakarmāṇi. ↩

  37. Bronkhorst (1993a: 83 f). ↩

  38. Cp. Bronkhorst (1993b: 164 f ). ↩

  39. WI p. 131, s.v. dharma-viśeṣāt, dharma-viśeṣa-sahitebhyaḥ. ↩

  40. Cp. Mīmāṃsākoṣa IV pp. 2241 s.v. dharma etc. ↩

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