810. The Buddhists then, according to this argument, are not at all
benefited by asserting the existence of a permanent Soul unto which each
repeated Consciousness may inhere. The Soul, according to the Brahmanical
scriptures, has no attributes or possessions. It is eternal, immutable,
and independent of all attributes. The affirmance of attributes with
respect to the Soul directly leads to the inference of its
destructibility, and hence the assertion of its permanency or
indestructibility under such conditions is a contradiction in terms,
according to what is urged in this verse.
811. The commentator explains that the object of this verse is to point
out that the senses, when destroyed, merge into their productive causes
or the substances of which they are attributes. Of course, those causes
or substances are the elements or primordial matter. This leads to the
inference that though attributes may meet with destruction, yet the
substances (of which they are attributes) may remain intact. This may
save the Buddhist doctrine, for the Soul, being permanent and owing
consciousness, etc., for its attributes, may outlive, like primordial
matter, the destruction of its attributes. But the speaker urges that
this doctrine is not philosophical and the analogy will not hold.
Substance is conjunction of attributes. The attributes being destroyed,
the substance also is destroyed. In European philosophy too, matter, as
an unknown essence to which extension, divisibility, etc.
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