z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 02.indd MK SJ+YS 4 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 84
84 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
- His philosophical approach was unique, and as philosopher he stood in a class by himself. His philosophy was known as the Sankhya Philosophy.
I
The tenets of his philosophy were of a startling nature.
Truth must be supported by proof. This is the first tenet of the Sankhya system. There is no truth without proof.
For purposes of proving the truth Kapila allowed only two means of proof—(1) perception and (2) inference.
By perception is meant mental apprehension of a present object.
Inference is threefold : (1) from cause to effect, as from the presence of clouds to rain ; (2) from effect to cause, as from the swelling of the streams in the valleys to rain in the hills, and (3) by analogy, as when we infer from the fact that a man alters his place when he moves that the stars must also move, since they appear in different places.
His next tenet related to causality—creation and its cause.
Kapila denied the theory that there was a being who created the universe. In his view a created thing really exists beforehand in its cause just as the clay serves to form a pot, or the threads go to form a piece of cloth.
This is the first ground on which Kapila rejected the theory that the universe was created by a being.
But there are other grounds which he advanced in support of his point of view.
The non-existent cannot be the subject of an activity : There is no new creation. The product is really nothing else than the material of which it is composed : the product exists before its coming into being in the shape of its material of which it is composed. Only a definite product can be produced from such material ; and only a specific material can yield a specific result.