The Vais'e@sika is so much associated with Nyâya by tradition that it seems at first sight quite unlikely that it could be supposed to represent an old school of Mîmâ@msâ, older than that represented in the Mîmâ@msâ sûtras. But a closer inspection of the Vais'e@sika sûtras seems to confirm such a supposition in a very remarkable way. We have seen in the previous section that Caraka quotes a Vais'e@sika sûtra. An examination of Caraka's Sûtrasthâna (I.35-38) leaves us convinced that the writer of the verses had some compendium of Vais'e@sika such as that of the Bhâ@sâpariccheda before him. Caraka sûtra or kârikâ (I.i. 36) says that the gu@nas are those which have been enumerated such as heaviness, etc., cognition, and those which begin with the gu@na "para" (universality) and end with "prayatna" (effort) together with the sense-qualities (sârthâ). It seems that this is a reference to some well-known enumeration. But this enumeration is not to be found in the Vais'e@sika sûtra (I.i. 6) which leaves out the six gu@nas,
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[Footnote 1: Caraka, S'ârîra, 39.]
[Footnote 2: See the next section.]
[Footnote 3: Vâtsyâyana's Bhâ@sya on the Nyâya sûtras, I.i.32. This is undoubtedly a reference to the Jaina view as found in Das'avaikâlikaniryukti as noted before.]
[Footnote 4: Nyâya sûtra I.i. 5, and Vais'e@sika sûtras IX. ii. 1-2, 4-5, and III. i. 8-17.]
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heaviness (gurutva), liquidity (dravatva), oiliness(sneha), elasticity (sa@mskâra), merit (dharma) and demerit (adharma); in one part of the sûtra the enumeration begins with "para" (universality) and ends in "prayatna," but buddhi (cognition) comes within the enumeration beginning from para and ending in prayatna, whereas in Caraka buddhi does not form part of the list and is separately enumerated. This leads me to suppose that Caraka's sûtra was written at a time when the six gu@nas left out in the Vais'e@sika enumeration had come to be counted as gu@nas, and compendiums had been made in which these were enumerated. Bhâ@sâpariccheda (a later Vais'e@sika compendium), is a compilation from some very old kârikâs which are referred to by Vis'vanâtha as being collected from "atisa@mk@siptacirantanoktibhi@h"—(from very ancient aphorisms [Footnote ref 1]); Caraka's definition of sâmânya and vis'e@sa shows that they had not then been counted as separate categories as in later Nyâya-Vais'e@sika doctrines; but though slightly different it is quite in keeping with the sort of definition one finds in the Vais'e@sika sûtra that sâmânya (generality) and vi'se@sa are relative to each other [Footnote ref 2]. Caraka's sûtras were therefore probably written at a time when the Vais'e@sika doctrines were undergoing changes, and well-known compendiums were beginning to be written on them.
The Vais'e@sika sûtras seem to be ignorant of the Buddhist doctrines. In their discussions on the existence of soul, there is no reference to any view as to non-existence of soul, but the argument turned on the point as to whether the self is to be an object of inference or revealed to us by our notion of "I." There is also no other reference to any other systems except to some Mîmâ@msâ doctrines and occasionally to Sâ@mkhya. There is no reason to suppose that the Mîmâ@msâ doctrines referred to allude to the Mîmâ@msâ sûtras of Jaimini. The manner in which the nature of inference has been treated shows that the Nyâya phraseology of "pûrvavat" and "s'e@savat" was not known. Vais'e@sika sûtras in more than one place refer to time as the ultimate cause [Footnote ref 3]. We know that the S'vetâs'vatara Upani@sad refers to those who regard time as the cause of all things, but in none of the
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