The Doctrine of Visesa in the Tattvavada School of Vedanta: Its Universal Relevance

The concept of Visesa is a unique concept of the Vaisesika school of Indian Philosophy. It can be said that on the basis of Visesas the Vaisesikas are able to provide an ontologically firm foundation to their pluralistic philosophy. Visesa is present in all the eternal substances and it is unique to the substratum wherein it resides. This is also known as the ultimate differentiator as every visesa is different from all other visesas and all other things by itself; it doesn’t expect anything else in order to be different from others; rather it is different from others by its own right and being different from others it also makes its substratum different from others. The Vaisesikas postulate the existence of visesas for this purpose only although there is no perceptual proof for their existence. It can be said that the Vaisesikas were in search of a firm foundation to their pluralistic philosophy and the visesas provided it. This is the reason this philosophy is called Vaisesika. The name of this philosophy was earned with the acceptance of this tattva. Interestingly the Tattvavada School of Vedanta alternatively known as Dvaita Vedanta also accepts the existence of Visesas. However, it is to be noted that both the schools don’t accept the identical idea of visesa. The idea of visesa was introduced in the Tattvavada School of Vedanta with the same purpose but was worked on differently. A majority of philosophy students are unaware of this point.

Professor C. H. Srinivasamurthy is an eminent scholar of Madhva School of Vedanta philosophy. A book on this aspect of the Tattvavada School of Vedanta is a very sincere effort to present this idea in a lucid manner to the students of Indian philosophy. I hope this book will ignite an interest for the study of this School. I would like to congratulate and thank Professor C. H. Srinivasamurthy for this valuable contribution. I hope he will produce such gems in future also.