(a) Does the seed contain the tree ? Discuss with reference to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika Philosophy. (10 marks) (b) Explain with reference…

(a) Does the seed contain the tree?

According to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, no. They hold asatkāryavāda (also ārambhavāda): the effect is a new beginning, absent in its cause before production. Before the tree exists there is its prior absence (prāgabhāva), which is real. The tree is a new whole (avayavin) made when its parts, the wood and other materials, come together, so the seed is only a cause that sets this going. It is not a container of a ready-made tree.

Their arguments: if the effect already existed in the cause, no causal effort would be needed, since the potter would work in vain. A pot is produced by the potter's activity, but we do not say the clay already holds water as a pot does. The effect also has a form, use and name that the cause lacks.

The Sāṃkhya objection (satkāryavāda) is that anything could then come from anything. The reply is that causality is fixed by invariable, unconditional antecedence (niyata-pūrvavartitā), not by prior presence.

(b) Śabda as the advice of an āpta

Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.7 defines śabda as āptopadeśa, the instruction of a reliable person. An āpta is one who has direct knowledge of the matter (sākṣātkṛta-dharmā) and wishes to communicate it as it is. Vātsyāyana says this holds for sages, the noble and even outsiders, so reliability, and not caste or status, decides.

Śabda is of two kinds (NS 1.1.8): about what is seen (dṛṣṭārtha), such as everyday reports, and about what is unseen (adṛṣṭārtha), such as the Vedas, which Nyāya traces to God as the supreme āpta.

For a sentence to yield knowledge, the hearer needs ākāṅkṣā (mutual expectancy of words), yogyatā (compatibility of meanings), sannidhi (proximity) and the speaker's intention (tātparya). Words convey meanings through convention (śakti), taken as set by God's will. The validity of śabda is derived from the reliability of the speaker, unlike Mīmāṃsā, which holds the Veda apauruṣeya (authorless).

(c) Is ayuta-siddhatva necessary or sufficient for defining samavāya?

Praśastapāda describes samavāya as the relation between ayutasiddha things, which stand as locus and located, and which gives rise to the cognition "it is here (in this)" (ihedam iti pratyaya). Entities are ayutasiddha when one cannot exist without being in the other: substance and quality, substance and action, whole and parts, universal and particular.

It is a necessary condition: samavāya holds only between such relata. This marks it off from conjunction (saṃyoga), which holds between separately existing (yutasiddha) things that can be apart.

It is not sufficient alone, because the term describes the relata and not the relation. A definition of samavāya also needs it to be the ground of the "here-this" cognition, and to be one, eternal and not produced. Some Naiyāyikas also object that inseparability is itself explained through samavāya, so the definition is circular. Taken together with the "iha" cognition, however, it is an adequate mark.

(d) Pudgala-nairātmya and dharma-nairātmya

Pudgala-nairātmya is the denial of an enduring self in the person: what we call a person is only a stream of five aggregates (skandhas) with no permanent ātman. All Buddhist schools accept it. Realising it removes the afflictive obscuration (kleśāvaraṇa), and so brings liberation from rebirth (arhatship).

Dharma-nairātmya is the denial of intrinsic nature (svabhāva) in the dharmas, the elementary factors themselves. Sarvāstivāda held that dharmas have real svabhāva and so accepted only the first. Mahāyāna schools, Madhyamaka (emptiness) and Yogācāra (mere cognition), teach both. Realising dharma-nairātmya removes the cognitive obscuration (jñeyāvaraṇa), which Mahāyāna holds must be removed for full Buddhahood.

(e) Cārvāka epistemology and the rejection of transcendental entities

The Cārvākas accept only perception (pratyakṣa) as a means of valid knowledge. Inference fails because invariable concomitance (vyāpti) cannot be established: perception cannot cover all past, future and distant cases, and inferring it would be circular or lead to infinite regress. They reject testimony, since the Vedas show untruth, contradiction and repetition, and also reject comparison as a distinct source.

The consequence is a rejection of whatever is not perceived: a soul separate from the body, God, rebirth, karma, heaven and hell. Consciousness arises from the four elements (earth, water, fire, air) as intoxicating power arises from fermented ingredients. Space (ākāśa) is excluded as imperceptible.

Criticism: the denial of inference itself seems to depend on inference. Some Cārvākas accepted probable inference in worldly matters, while the sceptic Jayarāśi denied all pramāṇas.