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Thread: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

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    Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    Hello All:

    The Nyaya Darshana is one of the "realist"ic schools of thought in Hindu philosophy. It is an Astika school in that it accepts the existence of the ontological entities of the Vedas - Brahman, Jiva and Prakriti.

    Uddayana was a systematizer of the Nyaya school and is considered to be the author of Atmatattvaviveka. In this work, he refutes the Buddhist thesis of momentariness which forms one of the foundations of Buddhism.

    This refutation is explained in detail in the journal article available here.

    I have been reading the article for some time now and can attempt to summarize it here in a series of posts. [It is a long and detailed article and is probably not available for free.] Will there be interest for this among patrons? The Nyaya school's refutation is considered to be one of the stronger refutations of Buddhism from the Astika schools.
    Last edited by wundermonk; 20 September 2011 at 02:22 AM.

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    I'd be interested.

    Unfortunately, the text is not available for free.

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    Namasté wondermonk

    Thank you for this kind proposal, yes I would also be interested to read your thoughts on this matter.

    praNAma

    mana

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    Very interested here as well.

    Couldn't see past the first page of that article though! Would love to read it some time.

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    Hello All:

    In this thread, I hope to provide my understanding of how the Udayana, who belongs to the Nyaya Darshana, refuted the Buddhist theory of momentariness. I have based this thread on an academic paper that appeared in the Journal of Indian Philosophy.

    The Nyaya Darshana is considered one of the most logically thorough schools of Hindu philosophy. It is a realist school. That is, it believes (unlike Advaita, which is idealistic) that the world we experience is ultimately real.

    All Hindu Darshanas are based on a belief in the existence of a permanent unchanging soul or Atman. Various Buddhist philosophies completely undercut this belief by denying the existence of ANYTHING permanent - be it Brahman or Atman or Jiva. Hence, different Hindu Darshanas were forced to attempt refutations of Buddhist philosophy. This was done by the various Darshanas at different points in time. According to Indian philosophers, the Nyaya school's refutation is considered to be one of the strongest refutations of one of the key foundations of Buddhist philosophical thought - the Theory of Momentariness [ToM]. The Kanchi Matt, for instance, says that it is wrong to believe that Adi Shankara led to Buddhism's downfall in India. They seem to attribute it more to the logical dialectics of the Nyaya and Mimamsa Darshanas against the Buddhist logicians. Link on this here.

    [Please note that in most attempted refutations, a charge that is levied is that the "refuter" is misrepresenting the actual position of the "refuted". The Buddhist position I will mention below are from the paper linked to above. They may or may NOT be the actual position of the Buddhist (whom I will refer to time and again in the post). I am merely attempting to summarize my understanding of the paper and as far as I can tell I am being true to it. Despite this, any remaining errors are my own.]

    According to the Buddhist Philosophy, the Theory of Momentariness [ToM] derives from the following axioms:

    (A1)Existence consists in the power to produce effects.
    (A2)The power to produce effects, or causal potency, is a power which must be discharged immediately.

    Consider an enduring entity [Brahman, Atman, Jiva, etc.]. Because between two moments the entity is unchanged, it has not caused any effect. It has thus been incapable of causal efficiency. Hence no enduring entity exists. This is just the contrapositive of (A1). A cause exists ONLY to produce an effect. After this, the cause perishes while the effect persists.

    To support his position, the Buddhist provides the following analogy to seek to establish the absurdity of the idea of any enduring entity. A seed in the granary is incapable of producing a sprout (since it does not do so as long as it remains in the granary) whereas a seed in the field is capable in this respect (since it does indeed produce a sprout). As a result, the granary seed is an object of a class/genus that is different from the class/genus to which the field seed is an object of. For if they belonged to the same class/genus, they possess two contradictory properties [capability/incapability to sprout] simultaneously leading to a contradiction.

    Udayana doesnt dispute (A1). He seeks to refute (A2) - this is, he seeks to establish that causal efficacy need NOT be an immediate capacity. If successful, he would have refuted ToM.

    The Nyaya school's position is that both the seeds - the seed in the granary as well as the seed in the field are to be understood as different objects belonging to the same class/genus. Under the presence of suitable acccessory causes, sprouting happens. For Udayana, both the granary and field seed share a common causal potentiality with respect to the production of the sprout. The difference between the granary and field seed is a difference at the level of causal actuality. Because Udayana will argue that the latter, productive capability or causal actuality, is dependent on factors *outside or extraneous* to the seed he will be able to render the capable/incapable distinction harmless to the identity of the granary seed with the field seed as objects belonging to the same class/genus. The granary seed fails to produce the sprout because it is in the wrong environment not because it is intrinsically different from the field seed.

    For the Buddhist argument to succeed, therefore, any interpretation of "capability" must be such as to create an *inhering* difference in identity between the non-sprouting granary seed and the sprouting field seed.

    Udayana begins by examining the idea of "capability". Does capability mean actual production of sprout? Uddayana points out that if this is the case, the Buddhist is begging the question. The Buddhist is trying to differentiate the granary seed from the field seed as belonging to two different classes because the former doesnt sprout while the latter sprouts and in attempting to prove this he again states that they are different because the field seed alone sprouts while the granary seed doesnt.

    Udayana then examines the idea of "capability" in terms of *potential* capability to sprout. Seeds in the granary are not potentially capable of sprouting whereas seeds in the field are. Can the two seeds therefore be declared to belong to two different classes as the Buddhist holds?

    Udayana says the difference in the two cases can be located in two factors:

    (a)presence/absence of accessorial causes, such as light, soil, water, fertilizer, etc., or,
    (b)*special* quality *inhering* in the field seed that is absent in the granary seed.

    If it is (a) we need to, therefore, distinguish between seeing the seed alone as the cause of the sprout and seeing the production of the sprout to be the result of a wider causal circumstance. When the granary seed is in the presence of the appropriate accessorial causes then there is production of the sprout. As long as the seed remains in the granary, however, it will not produce because of the absence of those accessorial causes. This is inimical to the Buddhist position since it destroys the basis for their opposition between the granary and the field seed. The difference between the granary and field seed is now a product of the presence or absence of factors external to the seed itself, rather than something intrinsic to the respective seeds.

    Now, let us consider (b). The *special* quality *inhering* in the field seed that is absent in the granary seed could be:

    1. Quality of "Seedness" - Even the seeds in the granary possess ‘seedness’. They are called ‘seeds’ and not 'stones'. So, we cannot say that the granary seed possesses less of "seedness" as compared to the field seed leading to their inability to sprout. So, this cannot be the cause of difference.
    2. A certain special excellence [kurvadrupa] inhering in field seed not present in the granary seed.

    Udayana provides the following reasons for not accepting the kurvadrupa.

    (x)No epistemology establishes it. The Buddhist accepts only perception and inference - neither of these epistemologies can be used to prove existence of this kurvadrupa.

    (x)Occam's razor - if something can be explained otherwise, why postulate another entity or property, kurvadrupa. For example, if Devadatta, who is fat, is seen eating sweets by day then there is no need to postulate that he is fat because he eats at night. Similarly, the seed plus the co-causes together are perfectly adequate for explaining the production of the sprout and hence the postulation of the kurvadrupa is unnecessary.

    [There are three more reasons provided by Udayana but we may not need to go into this now.]

    For Udayana, the seed in the field is of the same class as when it was stored in the granary. The production of the sprout is brought about by the accessorial causes which are responsible for activating a pre-existing nature present in both granary and field seed. Thus immediate production without delay in the field comes about as a result of the presence of the accessorial causes whereas delay in production in the granary is due to the absence of the accessorial causes. The Buddhist position is that if an entity does not produce its effect immediately it is incapable of producing it at all. If it is capable of bringing about a particular effect if will do so immediately.

    The series as thought of by Udayana is "Seedness" Granary seed -> "Seedness" Field Seed + Accessory Causes -> Sprout.

    As per the Buddhist, the field seed's series is composed of seed -> seed + accessorial causes -> seed with kurvadrupa -> sprout.

    Udayana says the "seed with kurvadrupa" is an unnecessary postulate [see two reasons provided above]. The series could just as well have been seed -> seed + accessorial causes -> sprout.

    As a result, there IS no inherent difference between the granary seed and the field seed. Hence, they both belong to the same class/genus with the exact same set of properties. The fact that the field seed sprouts and the granary seed doesnt is only a matter of absence of accessorial causes in the case of the granary seed. These accessorial causes present themselves at a later stage [with delay] to the granary seed in the field. Hence, the following axiom of the Buddhist is refuted:

    (A2)The power to produce effects, or causal potency, is a power which must be discharged immediately.
    Last edited by wundermonk; 20 September 2011 at 04:19 PM.

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    hari o
    ~~~~~~

    namasté

    Quote Originally Posted by wundermonk View Post
    It is an Astika school in that it accepts the existence of the ontological entities of the Vedas - Brahman, Jiva and Prakriti.
    I am happy to read your offers on this matter... If I may, let me contribute one part that may perhaps help the new reader to this subject matter. The key word you offer above is 'Astika' (āstika) - let's take a look.

    setting the stage
    Orthodox and Unorthodox - A view of Reality.
    • āstika means there is or exists
    • nāstika or na+ astika = it is not so. This word nāstika is not believing, or atheistical
      (this does not suggest not believing in God, yet it needs to be defined, to set the stage)
    So what does this mean? āstika there exists , or a regard that the veda-s are infallible, the final word, without doubt. Hence this is called Orthodox i.e. the Veda-s as the foundation of infallible truth. Compare this to nāstika which does not regard the veda-s as infallible or the final authority; Hence this view is considered Unorthodox.

    So, what is considered orthodox ? Which schools are they? It is the 6 systems of Indian philosophy -
    this is called saḍ darśana or the 6 schools of vision, seeing, sight. We know them as :

    • śāṁkhya
    • yoga
    • vedānta
    • mīmāṃsā
    • nyāya
    • vaiśeṣika
    The 6 darśana-s (seeing, looking, knowledge, traditional doctrine or precept , collection of such doctrines) are so complete in themselves, that many people took the 6 to be different views. This is not the case. It is the core 6, when taken as whole give a 360º view of Reality. Hence the notion about the concept of God is relevent to these schools and resides in these schools.

    Are there more schools ? Yes, I have counted no less then 16 yet the 6 above are the cornerstone - but will leave that for another string and conversation.

    praṇām
    Last edited by yajvan; 23 September 2011 at 02:22 PM.
    यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    @yajvan,

    Some claim that even Sankhya is nastik.
    It doesnt go beyond Purusha and Prakrit.

    rk

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    Quote Originally Posted by rkpande View Post
    @yajvan,

    Some claim that even Sankhya is nastik.
    It doesnt go beyond Purusha and Prakrit.

    rk
    Actually, it depends on the POV. As I see it, Samkhya interprets Pradhana/Prakriti to be Brahman.

    That is, while Vedanta says there exist Brahman, Prakriti and Jivas, Samkhya says there exists Brahman = Prakriti and Jivas = Purushas.

    The Brahmasutras attempt to refute the Samkhya more than any other school Astika or Nastika.

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    Re: Nyaya Darshana's Refutation of the Buddhist Thesis of Momentariness

    hariḥ oṁ
    ~~~~~~

    namasté


    Vedānta suggests brahman is taṭastha lakṣaṇa¹ ... this is indicated by the 2nd sūtra of the brahmasūtra-s.

    When the śāṁkhya view is taken up ( we see this in chapter 1 starting with the 5th sūtra; again in chapater 2 ) the coversation is centered on 'first cause'. The ~issue~ is on the notion of willing the universe into existance ' I shall create ( some say project) the worlds'.
    Accordingly this willing occurs from some intelligent principle (brahman); this is not the case ( so the argument goes) if this is done via pradhāna (prakṛti).


    So, who says ' I shall create the worlds' ? The aitareya upaniṣad.

    praṇām

    words
    • taṭastha lakṣaṇa - is the following:
      • taṭastha - a property distinct from the nature of the body and yet that by which it is known
      • lakṣaṇa - mark, characteristic
    Last edited by yajvan; 23 September 2011 at 02:22 PM.
    यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

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