Though this cursory statement must here suffice to give a general idea of the Vais' eshika system, it is worthy of especial notice that, according to it, understanding is the quality of soul, and the instruments of right notion are treated of under the head of "understanding (buddhi)." Kan'ada admits of only two such instruments, or pranuin'as, viz., knowledge which arises from the contact of a sense with its object, and inference. Comparison, revelation, and the other instruments of right notion, mentioned in other systems, the commentators endeavor to show are included in these two. Fallacies and other modes of inconclusive reasoning are further dealt with in connection with " infer ence," though with less detail than in the .Nyilya, where these topics are enlarged upon with particular predilection.—The reputed founder of the Vaiseshilm is Kan'atla, which name the native authorities derive from kan'a. minute, and eula, eating, and sometimes, therefore, also change into Ifan'abhuj or Kan'abhaksha (bhuj and Maksha being synonyms of dda). Nothing, however, is known as to the history Or date of this personage, as they are involved in the same obscurity which covers most of the renowned writers of ancient India. His work is divided into ten adhya'yas, or books, each of which is subdivided into two diurnal lessons; these, again, being subdivided into sections containing two or more sfitras (q.v.), or aphorisms, on the same topic. Nyaya-Stitras, the work of Kan'
ada has been commended upon by a triple set of commentaries, and popularized in sev eral elementary treatises. The text with the commentary of gunkara is not to be confounded with the celebrated Vedanta author—has been edited at Calcutta in 1S61 by the Pan'cl'it Jayanarayana Tarka Panchanana, who added to it a gloss of his own; and some of the sutras have been translated by the late Dr. Ballantyne (Mirza pore, 1851). Of later works on the same system, may be mentioned the Bhtishdparich chhala, edited with the commentary called Siddlalntantulckitali, and translated by the late Dr. Hoer in the Bibliotheca Indica (Calcutta, 1850). and the popular Tarhasangraha in several editions; edited also and translated by Dr. Ballantyne (2d edit., Calcutta, 1848), who in his preface gives a catalogue of the commentaries which this work has elicited. The reader not acquainted with Sanskrit is, for further information on the subject, referred to these translations, and to the essays on the Vaiseshika system by H. T. Cole. brook (Miscellaneous Essays. vol. i., Lond. 1837), and prof. M. Mfdler, in the 6th and 7th vols. of the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft.