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Further, “operation” cannot be qualified as being itself produced by the cause; for it is the meaning of the concept of cause that has still to be explained and defined. If, again, cause is defined as the antecedence of that which is other than the not- cause, then this again would be faulty; for one cannot understand x1] Application of Dialectic to Different Categories 145 the “not-cause” of the definition without understanding what is the nature of cause, and vice-versa. Moreover, space, being a per- manent substance, is always present as a not-cause of anything, and is yet regarded as the cause of sound. If, again, cause is defined as that which is present when the effect is present and absent when the effect is absent, this would not explain the causality of space, which is never known to be absent. If, again, cause is defined as invariable antecedence, then permanent substances such as space are to be regarded as the sole causes of effects. If, however, in- variable antecedence be understood to mean unconditional ante- cedence, then two coexistent entities such as the taste and the colour of an earthen pot which is being burnt must mutually be the cause of the colour and the taste of the burnt earthen pot; for neither does the colour condition taste, nor does the taste condition colour. Moreover, if mere invariable antecedents be regarded as cause, then the invariably preceding symptoms of a disease are to be regarded as the cause of the disease on account of their in- variable antecedence. Again, causality cannot be regarded as a specific character or quality belonging to certain things, which quality can be directly perceived by us as existing in things. Thus we may perceive the stick of the potter’s wheel to be the cause of the particular jugs produced by it, but it is not possible to perceive causality as a general quality of a stick or of any other thing. If causality existed only with reference to things in general, then it would be impossible to conceive of the production of individual things, and it would not be possible for anyone to know which particular cause would produce a particular effect. On the other hand, it is not possible to perceive by the senses that an individual thing is the cause of a number of individual effects ; for until these individual effects are actually produced it is not possible to perceive them, since perception involves sense-contact as its necessary condition. It is not necessary for our present purposes to enter into all the different possible concepts of cause which Sriharsa seeks to refute: the above examination is expected to give a fairly comprehensive idea of the methods of Sriharsa’s refutation of the category of cause. Nor is it possible within the limited range of the present work to give a full account of all the different alternative defences of the _various categories accepted in Nyaya philosophy, or of all the various ways in which Sriharsa sought to refute them in his Dil p de) 146 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. Khandana-khanda-khadya. J have therefore attempted to give here only some specimens of the more important parts of his dialectical argument. The chief: defect of Sriharsa’s criticisms is that they often tend to grow into verbal sophisms, and lay greater stress on the faults of expression of the opponent’s definitions and do not do him the justice of liberally dealing with his general ideas. It is easy to see how these refutations of the verbal definitions of the Nyaya roused the defensive spirit of the Naiyayikas into re-stating their definitions with proper qualificatory phrases and adjuncts, by which they avoided the loopholes left in their former definitions for the attack of Sriharsa and other critics. In one sense, therefore, the criticisms of Sriharsa and some of his followers had done a great disservice to the development of later Nyaya thought; for, unlike the older Nydya thinkers, later Nyadya writers, like Gangesa, Raghunatha and others, were mainly occupied in inventing suitable qualificatory adjuncts and phrases by which they could define their categories in such a way that the undesirable applications and issues of their definitions, as pointed out by the criticisms of their opponents, could be avoided. If these criticisms had mainly been directed towards the defects of Nyaya thought, later writers would not have been forced to take the course of developing verbal ex- pressions at the expense of philosophical profundity and acuteness. Sriharsa may therefore be said to be the first great writer who is responsible indirectly for the growth of verbalism in later Nyaya thought. Another defect of Sriharsa’s criticisms is that he mainly limits himself to criticizing the definitions of Nyaya categories and does not deal so fully with the general ideas involved in such categories of thought. It ought, however, in all fairness to Sriharsa to be said that, though he took the Nyaya definitions as the main objective of his criticisms, yet in dealing with the various alternative varia- tions and points of view of such definitions he often gives an exhaustive treatment of the problems involved in the discussion. But in many cases his omissions become very glaring. Thus, for example, in his treatment of relations he only tries to refute the definitions of relation as container and contained, as inherence, and as subject-object relation of cognitions, and leaves out many other varieties of relation which might well have been dealt with. Another characteristic feature of his refutation is, as has already been pointed out, that he has only a destructive point of view and is x1] Citsukha’s Interpretations of Vedanta Concepts 147 not prepared to undertake the responsibility of defining any position from his own point of view. He delights in showing that none of the world-appearances can be defined in any way, and that thus, being indescribable, they are all false. But incapacity to define or describe anything in some particular way cannot mean that the thing is false. Sriharsa did not and could not show that the ways of definition which he attempted to refute were the only ways of defining the different categories. They could probably be defined in other and better ways, and even those definitions which he refuted could be bettered and improved by using suitable qualificatory phrases. He did not attempt to show that the concepts involved in the categories were fraught with such contradictions that, in whatever way one might try to define, one could not escape from those inner contradictions, which were inherent in the very nature of the concepts themselves. Instead of that he turned his attention to the actual formal definitions which had been put forward by the Nyaya and sometimes by Prabhakara and tried to show that these definitions were faulty. To show that particular definitions are wrong is not to show that the things defined are wrong. It is, no doubt, true that the refutation of certain definitions involves the refutation of the concepts involved in those definitions; but the refutation of the particular way of presentation of the concept does not mean that the concept itself is impossible. In order to show the latter, a particular concept has to be analysed on the basis of its own occurrences, and the inconsistencies involved in such an analysis have to be shown. Citsukha’s Interpretations of the Concepts of Sankara Vedanta. Citsukha (about a.D. 1220), a commentator on Sriharsa, had all Sriharsa’s powers of acute dialectical thought, but he not only furnishes, like Sriharsa, a concise refutation of the Nyaya categories, but also, in his Tattva-pradipika, commented on by Pratyagbha- gavan (A.D. 1400) in his Nayana-prasadini’, gives us a very acute 1 Citsukha, a pupil of Gaudegvara Acarya, called also Jfianottama, wrote a commentary on Anandabodha Bhattarakacarya’s Nyaya-makaranda and also on Sriharsa’s Khandana-khanda-khadya and an independent work called Tativa- pradipika or Cit-sukhi, on which the study of the present section is based. In “this work he quotes Udayana, Uddyotakara, Kumiarila, Padmapada, Vallabha (Lilavati), Salikanatha, Sureégvara, Sivaditya, Kularka Pandita and Sridhara 10-2 148 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. analysis and interpretation of some of the most important concepts of Sankara Vedanta. He is not only a protector of the Advaita doctrine of the Vedanta, but also an interpreter of the Vedantic con- cepts!. The work is written in four chapters. In the first chapter Citsukha deals with the interpretation of the Vedanta concepts of self-revelation (sva-prakasa), the nature of self as consciousness (atmanah samvid-riipatva), the nature of ignorance as darkness, the nature of falsity (mithyatva), the nature of nescience (avidya), the nature of the truth of all ideas (sarva-pratyayanam yatha~thatvam), the nature of illusions, etc. In the second chapter he refutes the Nyaya categories of difference, separateness, quality, action, class- concepts, specific particulars (visesa), the relation of inherence (samavaya), perception, doubt, illusion, memory, inference, in- variable concomitance (vyapti), induction (vyapti-graha), existence of the reason in the minor term (paksa-dharmata), reason (hetu), analogy (upamana), implication, being, non-being, duality, measure, causality, time, space, etc. In the third chapter, the smallest of the book, he deals with the possibility of the realization of Brahman and the nature of release through knowledge. In the fourth chapter, which is much smaller than the first two, he deals with the nature of the ultimate state of emancipation. Citsukha starts with a formal definition of the most funda- mental concept of the Vedanta, namely the concept of self-reve- lation or self-illumination (sva-prakasa).