VAISESIKA


Theism is only an appendage.

No faith in Vedas as highest authority.

substance, quality, action, commonness, particularity, invariable
concommittance, non existence/negation.

Doctrine of atoms of visesa.

Symmetry, consistency of divisions, precision of thought and expression
- characteristics of Vaisesika.

Carries to perfection and emphasised Nyaya which concerned solely with theory,
logic and art of reasoning.

Soul and matter are distinct entities, both real. Meeting of one with
the other is the cause of miseries.

SOUL:
receptacle of knowledge
distinct from body and senses
different for each individual
omnipresent
eternal
perceived by mind
demonstrated by peculiar attributes like knowledge, desire, aversion, pain
                                         and pleasure efort etc.
cannot experience pain or pleasure unless through body like earth etc. It is
also a dravya.

Besides this soul there is Paramatman:
one, seat of eternal knowledge known from valid proof as maintainer of
everything.

World is of four kinds based on earth, water, fire & air.

Gross products can be reduced into atoms - incapable of further analysis.

By will of Paramatman a movement is produced and atoms are brought together
and creation takes place

Freedom from Samsara is the goal of life.

Means is the right knowledge of seven categories according to Gautama.

Process of bondage:
false notions - mistaking body for soul
results in sankalpa vikalpa (nothing is good anyway)
impelled by this either wrong or right things are done
this leads to good or bad birth
pain is there till the birth lasts

Process of liberation:
right knowledge of categories
all false notions disappear
no more activity
no more birth
no more pain
all bliss

Philosophy termed as arambha or asatkriya

Dualistic and materialistic conception.

Admits eternal existence of matter apart from the intelligent principle as
independent of it.

Main stand on tarka - resort to srutis only when it is convenient.

Effect is different from cause, but it is newly created in it stands in
invariable concommitance (samanvaya).