this would reduce difference to identity.  If it is said that the absence of jug in the cloth is not a separate thing, but is rather the identical cloth itself, 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.

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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 that everything that appeared as a fixed order or system was non-existent, for all were unspeakable, indescribable and self-contradictory, and thus everything being discarded there was only the void (s’unya).  S’a@nkara partially utilized this method in his refutations of Nyaya and the Buddhist systems; but S’rihar@sa