Abstract
The Vaisesika School, which is one of six Indian orthodox schools of Philosophies, is known as ancient realism. In this paper, the author intends to examine the theoretical structure of the concept of 'matter' in this school, based on the three main texts, Vaisesikasutra (1C.A.D.), Dasapadarthi (勝宗十句義論4〜5C.A.D.), and Prasastapadabhasya (6C.A.D.). The Vaisesika system is said to have two substantial elements. One is rupa, the other murtatva. Basically, the rupa was a word meaning both color and form, and was used to indicate a matter in ancient India. Also in the Vaisesika school the meaning of rupa was the same as its general meaning in ancient India until the time of the Vaisesikasutra. But after the Dasapadarthi, the rupa was strictly restrained to only one meaning, that of color. On the other hand, the term of murtatva began to be used as a term for form simultaneously in the Dasapadarthi. In the following Prasastapadabhasya, moreover, the term of rupa was used only to mean color, and the term of murtatva meant form of the moving substance. From this, it can be confirmed that, at the time of the Dasapadarthi, the change of the concept of rupa occurred simultaneously with the new concept of murtatva relating to motion. We can, therefore, conclude that the problem of motion affected the concept of matter in the Vaisesika theory.
