, then also their difference as mutual exclusion cannot be
explained. If this mutual negation (_anyonyabhava_) is explained
as the mere absence of jugness in the cloth and of clothness in
the jug, then also a difficulty arises; for there is no such quality
in jugness or clothness that they may be mutually excluded;
and there is no such quality in them that they can be treated as
identical, and so when it is said that there is no jugness in cloth
we might as well say that there is no clothness in cloth, for
clothness and jugness are one and the same, and hence absence
of jugness in the cloth would amount to the absence of clothness
in the cloth which is self-contradictory. Taking again the third
alternative we see that if difference means divergence of characteristics
(_vaidharmya_), then the question arises whether the
vaidharmya or divergence as existing in jug has such a divergence
as can distinguish it from the divergence existing in the cloth; if
the answer is in the affirmative then we require a series of endless
vaidharmyas progressing _ad infinitum_. If the answer is in the
negative then there being no divergence between the two divergences
they become identical, and hence divergence of characteristics
as such ceases to exist. If it is said that the natural forms of
things are difference in themselves, for each of them excludes the
other, then apart from the differences--the natural forms--the
things are reduced to formlessness (_ni@hsvarupata_). If natural forms
(_svarupa_) mean special natural forms (_svarupa-vis'e@sa_) then as the
special natural forms or characteristics only represent difference,
the natural forms of the things as apart from the special ones
would appear to be identical. So also it may be proved that there
is no such quality as p@rthaktva (separateness) which can explain
differences of things, for there also the questions would arise as
to whether separateness exists in different things or similar ones
or whether separateness is identical with the thing in which it
exists or not, and so forth.

465

The earliest beginnings of this method of subtle analysis and
dialectic in Indian philosophy are found in the opening chapters
of _Kathavatthu_. In the great _Mahabha@sya_ on Pa@nini by Patanjali
also we find some traces of it. But Nagarjuna was the man who
took it up in right earnest and systematically cultivated it in all
its subtle and abstruse issues and counter-issues in order to prove