[Advaita-l] Attributes and their locus-2

[V Subrahmanian]

An article available here addresses the problem of attributes and
substantive from the Vedantic perspective:

http://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/attributes-and-substantive/

subrahmanian.v


On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 11:16 AM, kuntimaddi sadananda <
kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> Analysis of Attributes and their Locus-2
>
> We discussed in the earlier part
> the swaruupa lakshaNas and swaabhavika lakshaNas. LakshaNa also means that
> it
> indicates or points the lakshyam or the goal or the attributive locus.
> Swaruupa
> lakshaNa is the necessary and sufficient qualification that can uniquely
> and
> precisely define its locus, while the swaabhaavika lakshaNas are the only
> necessary but not sufficient qualifications to specify their locus. For
> example, sweetness is a necessary qualification or swaabhaavika lakshaNa
> for
> sugar but it is not sufficient qualification to define sugar. To fulfill
> sufficiency the converse has to be valid. That is, if an object is sweet,
> it
> has to be sugar. Since there are other compounds that are also sweet, the
> sufficiency is not fulfilled by that lakshaNa. Swaruupa lakshana normally
> refers to jaati than vyakti or the individual entity of that group. We may
> note
> here that for Advaita the jaati is not considered as fundamental entity
> unlike
> for Nyaaya Vaisheshikas. For example man-ness can be considered as swarupa
> lakshaNa for all men in general. However in trying to define what exactly
> man-ness means, we run into a circular definition in the sense that
> man-ness is
> what man has and man is one who has man-ness. We have stated already that
> which
> is assembled from parts cannot have a fundamental swaruupa lakshaNa. This
> naturally
> applies to man-ness of the man since it is not a specific attribute that
> man
> has but some of essential collective attributes put together that
> differentiates
> it from other ness-es.
>