There are, moreover, other objections to the Vai/s/eshika doctrine.—­The Vai/s/eshikas assume six categories, which constitute the subject-matter of their system, viz. substance, quality, action, generality, particularity, and inherence.  These six categories they maintain to be absolutely different from each other, and to have different characteristics; just as a man, a horse, a hare differ from one another.  Side by side with this assumption they make another which contradicts the former one, viz. that quality, action, &c. have the attribute of depending on substance.  But that is altogether inappropriate; for just as ordinary things, such as animals, grass, trees, and the like, being absolutely different from each other do not depend on each other, so the qualities, &c. also being absolutely different from substance, cannot depend on the latter.  Or else let the qualities, &c. depend on substance; then it follows that, as they are present where substance is present, and absent where it is absent, substance only exists, and, according to its various forms, becomes the object of different terms and conceptions (such as quality, action, &c.); just as Devadatta, for instance, according to the conditions in which he finds himself is the object of various conceptions and names.  But this latter alternative would involve the acceptation of the Sa@nkhya doctrine[372] and the abandonment of the Vai/s/eshika standpoint.—­But (the Vai/s/eshika may say) smoke also is different from fire and yet it is dependent on it.—­True, we reply; but we ascertain the difference of smoke and fire from the fact of their being apperceived in separation.  Substance and quality, on the other hand, are not so apperceived; for when we are conscious of a white blanket, or a red cow, or a blue lotus, the substance is in each case cognised by means of the quality; the latter therefore has its Self in the substance.  The same reasoning applies to action, generality, particularity, and inherence.

If you (the Vai/s/eshika) say that qualities, actions, &c. (although not non-different from substances) may yet depend on the latter because substances and qualities stand in the relation of one not being able to exist without the other (ayutasiddhi[373]); we point out that things which are ayutasiddha must either be non-separate in place, or non-separate in time, or non-separate in nature, and that none of these alternatives agrees with Vai/s/eshika principles.  For the first alternative contradicts your own assumptions according to which the cloth originating from the threads occupies the place of the threads only, not that of the cloth, while the qualities of the cloth, such as its white colour, occupy the place of the cloth only, not that of the threads.  So the Vai/s/eshika-sutras say (I, 1, 10), ’Substances originate another substance and qualities another quality.’  The threads which constitute the causal substance originate the effected substance, viz. the cloth, and the qualities