Last Reason For Satkaryavada

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269443/1

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The last reason for satkaryavada JOHANNES BRONKHORST, Lausanne This modest contribution to the volume in honour of Professor Minoru HARA contains a supplementary observation to the lecture which, at his invitation, I had the pleasure of giving at the International Institute for Buddhist Studies in Tokyo in May 1996, and which became the basis for a series of lectures (Paris 1997) that have now been published under the title Langage et realite: sur un episode de la pensee indienne (BRONKHORST, 1999). This note is not based on new independent research, but has been inspired by and draws upon Professor Phyllis GRANOFF's contribution to the conference on Samkhya and Yoga (Lausanne 1998) which too has now been published (GRANOFF, 1999). The Samkhyakarika justifies the doctrine of satkaryavada in karika 9, which reads: asadakaranad upadanagrahanat sarvasambhavabhavat / Saktasya sakyakaranat karanabhavac ca sat karyam /19/1 This karika contains five arguments, the last of which concerns us at present. It reads, in Sanskrit: karanabhavat sat karyam. This is ambiguous, and allows of at least three different interpretations: (1) "Because the cause] is a cause, the product exists." (2) "Because the product) is [identical with] the cause, the product exists." (3) "Because of the existence of the cause, the product exists." Only the Jayamangala appears to opt for interpretation (3), in the following obscure passage: karanabhavac ceti: karanasya sattvad ity arthah. yady asat karyam utpadyate kim iti? karanad eva na karyasya bhavo bhavati, bhavati ca. tasmac chaktirupenavasthitam iti gamyate. "Karanabhavac ca means: because of the existence of the cause. If it is asked: the product, (though] non-existent, comes into being, what is the conse Festschrift Minoru Hara (2000), S. 53-62

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Johannes Bronkhorst quence]?' (then the answer is:) 'The product does not exist as a result of the cause only, and yet it exists. It is therefore understood that the product] is present in the cause) in the form of a potency.""! The logic of this argument is not fully clear to me. It may be something like this: The very fact that there can be a cause implies that there must be a product. Understood in this way interpretation (3) is not very different from interpretation (1).? Most of the surviving commentaries on the Samkhyakarika prefer interpretation (2). They all seem to agree that the product is identical with the cause. The Gaudapadabhasya, for example, states: karanam yallaksanam tallaksanam eva karyam api "Whatever is the nature of the cause, the same is the nature of the effect" (tr, Mainkar). The Matharavrtti and the Samkhyasaptativtti use practically the same words. The Jayamangala, having first presented interpretation (3), then gives, as an alternative, interpretation (2): yatsvabhavam karanam tatsvabhavam karyam. Vacaspati Misra's Tattvakaumudi formulates the same position in the following words: 'karanabhavac ca': karyasya karanatmakatvat. na hi karanad bhinnam karyam, karanam ca sa iti karham tadabhinnam karyam asat bhavet. The commentary translated by Paramartha into Chinese appears to have adopted the same position. The Samkhyavrtti edited under the name V, by Esther A. SOLOMON seems to accept a variant of this interpretation. If we accept the corrections proposed by its editor, it reads: karanabhavad iti: karanesu prag utpatteh sat karyam iti. This suggest the interpretation: "Because the product) is in the causes [before it comes into being), the product exists." "I thank Professor Wezler for help in interpreting this passage. ? Mainkar, 1964: 25-26. Mainkar, 1964: 25-26 Sarma, 1922: 17: iha loke yallaksanam karanam tallaksanam karyam syar; Solomon, 1973: 18: iha loke yallaksanam karanam tallaksanam karyam api bhavari Satkarisarma Vangiya, 1970:74. JHA, SHARMA and PATKAR, 1965: 47: SRINIVASAN, 1967: 98-101. Cp. Takakusu, 1904: 991: "L'effet est de la meme espece que la cause."

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The last reason for satkaryavada The similarity between these commentaries is great, and it is not surprising that SOLOMON in her comparative study of the commentaries remarks (SOLOMON, 1974: 27): "karanabhavat is similarly explained by all." This is not however fully correct. The Yuktidipika, the "most significant commentary on the Samkhyakarika", comments in a manner which allows us to conclude that it accepts interpretation (1). It states: karanabhavac ca sat karyam': ihasati karye karanabhavo nasti tadyatha vandhyayah. asti ceha karanabhavas tantupatayoh. tasmat sat karyam. The explanation can be translated: "On the one hand (iha), something or somebody - as for example a barren woman - is not a cause in case there is no product. On the other hand (iha), from among the thread and the cloth (one of the two, viz. the thread] is a cause (because there is a product, viz. the cloth). For this reason the product exists (while the cause is there)." In other words, without a product being there, a cause is not a cause; or, the other way round, because a cause is a cause, there must be a product. This is interpretation (1). It is surprising that interpretation (2) is so strongly represented in the surviving literature of Samkhya, and interpretation (1) so weakly. Interpretation (1) is of a type that is wide-spread in Indian philosophical literature, as we shall see below; this is not true of interpretation (2). Let us now turn to the material presented in GRANOFF's article mentioned above. GRANOFF draws attention to a Buddhist text - Santaraksita's Tattvasamgraha and its commentary Panjika by Kamalasila -- and to a number of Jaina texts which all cite and discuss Samkhyakarika 9, i.e. the Samkhya arguments in defence of satkaryavada. She argues convincingly that the Jaina texts follow here the lead of the Tattvasamgraha. All these texts offer an interpretation of karanabhavat which is close to what is offered in the Yuktidipika. The Tattvasamgraha, for example, gives the following explanation: * Wezler and Motegi, 1998: 124 1. 6-8.

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S6 Johannes Bronkhorst karyasyaivam ayogac ca kim kurvat karanam bhavet / tatah karanabhavo 'pi bijader navakalpate // "And because the product would in this way be impossible, what is it that the cause would produce? As a result the seed etc. cannot even be cause." The Panjika comments: asatkaryavade sarvathapi karyasyayogat kim kurvat bijadi karanam bhaver. tatas caivam sakyate vaktum: na karanam bijadih, avidyamanakaryatvad, gaganabjavad iti. na caivam bhavati, tasmad viparyaya iti siddham: prag utpatteh sat karyam iti. The logical proof contained in this passage can be translated as follows: "The seed etc. are no cause, because no product is present, like a lotus in the sky (which, being totally non-existent, is not accompanied by a product, and is therefore no cause). However, it is not like this (i.e., seed is a cause); therefore the reverse (must be true), and thus it is established that the product is present before it comes into being." Abhayadeva's Tattvabodhavidhayini cites the above verse from the Tattvasamgraha and explains the last argument in exactly the same terms as the Panjika. 10 But also Prabhacandra's Prameyakamalamartanda is clearly influenced by these two Buddhist texts when it states: bijadeh karanabhavac ca sat karyam karyasattve tadayogat. tatha hi: na karanabhavo bijadeh avidyamanakaryatvat kharavisanavar. tat siddham utpatteh prak karane karyam." In his Kumudacandra Prabhacandra explains the logic behind the argument: 'karanabhavac ca sat karyam'. karanabhavo hi karanatvam, tac ca nityasambandhitvat karyasambandham apeksate, na ca asata gaganambhojaprakhyena karanasya kascit sambandhah, atah karane karyam tadatmyena vartate. 12 GRANOFF sums up the arguments as follows (p. 583): "The Jain texts (and the Buddhist Tattvasamgraha ...) agree that the argument is something like this: The product must exist, since we speak of a cause and causality is a relationship. A non-existent entity cannot be one term of a relationship. We do not see hare's horns Tattvasamgraha 13; Dwarikadas Shastri, 1981: I: 26. 10 Samghavi & Dosi, 1924-1931: 1: 283 1. 22-27 11 Kumar, 1990: 288 1. 9-11. 12 Kumar, 1991: 353 1. 5-7.

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The last reason for satkaryavada 57 entering into any kind of relationship with anything. Therefore the product must exist in order for us to speak of something being a 'cause' at all." That is, they all follow interpretation (1) of the sentence karanabhavat sat karyam "Because [the cause] is a cause, the product exists." Does this mean that these Jaina texts and the Tattvasamgraha from which they borrowed have all undergone the influence, direct or indirect, of the Yuktidipika? GRANOFF emphatically denies this: "the Jain texts show little or no awareness of the often unique arguments of the Yuktidipika, which might lead to the further speculation that the Yuktidipika was not a text whose theories were hotly debated outside Samkhya circles" (p. 582). With regard to the first four arguments presented in Samkhyakarika 9 she observes: "The Yuktidipika... deviates from the other interpretations [offered in the other commentaries on this text] considerably, but the Jain texts l'have examined show absolutely no awareness of its arguments for much of the verse" (p. 583). All this means that the Tattvasamgraha and the Jaina texts that borrow from it share the fifth argument in favour of satkaryavada with the Yuktidipika and with no other Samkhya commentaries, but are totally ignorant of the first four arguments presented in that same Yuktidipika. How is this to be explained? GRANOFF offers the following solution (p. 583): "It seems... likely that [these Jaina texts and the Tattvasamgraha] derive their interpretation from some text that we no longer have at our disposal today." She adds (p. 584): "There remains, then, considerable detective work to be done on this question." Such detective work cannot be carried out here and now. It is however interesting to conclude that the Yuktidipika appears not to have been the only text that followed interpretation (1). This is reassuring, because there are good reasons to believe that interpretation (1) was the original interpretation of the sentence karanabhavat sat karyam. How can one know the original interpretation of an ambiguous sentence that allows of at least three interpretations? Several factors support interpretation (1), all of them based on other texts than the Samkhyakarika and its commentaries." One is that Aryadeva's Sataka, which is older than the Samkhyakarika, appears to contain the same argument. apparently in the same ambiguous form. Its commentator Vasu, 13 For details. see Bronkhorst, 1999.

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58 Johannes Bronkhorst by stating "If the pot does not pre-exist in earth, then earth could not become the cause of the pot", shows that he opted for interpretation (1). More important is that the kind of argument embodied in interpretation (1) was widely used in Indian philosophy at the time when Samkhya as a system was being created. For details I have to refer to my book Langage et realite. Here I will merely cite a verse from Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika, which uses this argument: naivasato naiva satah pratyayo 'rthasya yujyate/ asatah pratyayah kasya satas ca pratyayena kim //4 "Neither of a non-existent nor of an existent object is a cause possible. Of which non-existent [object] is there a cause? And what is the use of an existent [object]?" We recognize the assumption which also underlies interpretation (1): for something to be a cause, there has to be a product, there and then. Once one accepts this assumption, one may be induced to drawing various counterintuitive conclusions: Nagarjuna that no cause can exist, the Samkhyas their no less extraordinary position that the product is there before it has been produced. Is it possible to say more about the assumption underlying these and other arguments? GRANOFF formulates it as follows, as we have seen: "The product must exist, since we speak of a cause and causality is a relationship. A non-existent entity cannot be one term of a relationship. We do not see hare's horns entering into any kind of relationship with anything. Therefore the product must exist in order for us to speak of something being a 'cause' at all." This formulation takes care of the fifth argument in the Yuktidipika which we also find in the Tattvasamgraha and the Jaina texts considered, and also of Nagarjuna's above argument, and no doubt of many other arguments found in Indian philosophical texts of that period. However, there are textual passages which allow us to conclude that a formulation has to be accepted in which the parellelism between what we say and the situation described finds expression. An example is the following passage from Sankara's Brahmasutra Bhasya, which argues precisely in defense of the satkaryavada: prag utpattes ca karyasyasattve utpattir akartrka niratmika ca syat / utpattis ca nama kriya, sa sakartrkaiva bhavitum arhati gatyadivat / kriya ca nama syad akartrka ceti vipratisidhyeta / ghatasya cotpattir ucyamana na ghatakartrka, 14 MadhK(deJ) 1.6..

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The last reason for satkaryavada kim tarhy anyakartrka iti kalpya syat / ... / tatha ca sati ghata utpadyate ity ukte kulaladini karanani utpadyante ity uktam syat / na ca loke ghatotpattir ity ukte kulaladinam apy utpadyamanata pratiyate / utpannatapratiten / "If the effect did not exist prior to its coming into being, the coming into being would be without agent and empty. For coming into being is an activity, and must therefore have an agent, like (such activities) as going etc. It would be contradictory to say that something is an activity, but has no agent. It could be thought that the coming into being of a jar, (though) mentioned, would not have the jar as agent, but rather something else. ... If that were true, one would say "the potter and other causes come into being" instead of "the jar comes into being". In the world however, when one says "the jar comes into being" no one understands that also the potter etc. come into being; for'[these] are understood to have already come into being."15 In other words, the situation described has to correspond to the way we describe it. This is also clear from the following verse that occurs in Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika: gamyamanasya gamane prasaktam gamanadvayam / yena tad gamyamanam ca yac catra gamanam punah // "If there is a going of (a road) that is being gone, there would be two goings: that by which the (road) is being gone, and again the going on it." The only possible reason for thinking that there should be two goings is that the sentence describing the situation - something like "[the road) which is being gone, is being gone" (gamyamanam gamyate) - has the verb 'going' twice over. In the light of these and similar reflections I have proposed to formulate the more or less hidden assumption behind all these arguments as follows: "the words of a sentence must correspond, one by one, to the things that constitute the situation described by that sentence":17 I call this the correspondence principle. It takes for granted that there is, at some particular time, a situation in which all the things that constitute it occur together, and this forced many Indian thinkers - among them " Sankara ad Brahmasutra 2.1.18; cited and discussed in Bronkhorst, 1996: 2. 16 MadhK(de)) 2.5; cited and discussed in Bronkhorst, 1997: 34. "? Bronkhorst, 1996: 1; 1997: 32; 1999: $ 1.1.

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60 Johannes Bronkhorst Nagarjuna and the Samkhyas - to draw counterintuitive conclusions. We cannot conclude this discussion without addressing the question as to why most of the commentaries of the Samkhyakarika have given an interpretation to the fifth argument different from the one originally intended. One answer may well be that the first and the fifth argument would otherwise be almost identical. The first argument, it may be recalled, reads: asadakaranat (sat karyam] "The product exists because one does not produce something that does not exist." One might elucidate the logic underlying this argument with the following variant of GRANOFF's above explanation: "The product must exist, since we speak of producing and producing something is a relationship (between the maker and the product, or between the making and the product). A non-existent entity cannot be one term of a relationship. Therefore the product must exist in order for us to speak of producing something at all." Or, using the correspondence principle, one might say that there must be something corresponding to the word 'pot' in the situation described by the statement "He produces a pot". Either way the argument presented is close to the the fifth argument in interpretation (1). However, more may have been involved in the preference for interpretation (2). The commentaries that offer this interpretation in this way take position in an altogether different debate, which may have been initiated by the Vaisesikas. One of the fundamental positions of this school of thought - one of its "axioms" - is that composite objects are different from their constituent parts. It may have arrived at this position as a result of opposing the Buddhist point of view according to which no composite objects but only their constituent parts exist. However this may be, once these points of view had been articulated in Indian philosophy, the Samkhyas were more or less obliged to determine their own position in this controversy. They chose the position which maintains that composite objects and their constituent parts are not different from each other. Concretely speaking: a cloth is not different from the threads that constitute it. 18 Bronkhorst, 1992.

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The last reason for satkaryavada It will be clear that this position could easily be made to agree with the doctrine of satkaryavada. The cloth is namely also the product of the threads, which are its cause. The doctrine of satkaryavada states that the cloth is there, in the threads, at the time when it has not yet been made. The classical Samkhya position regarding parts and wholes states that the cloth is not different from the threads that constitute it. Combined they state that the cloth is there, in the threads, because it is not really different from them. This is interpretation (2) of the Sanskrit phrase karanabhavat sat karyam. It is doubtful whether this argument adds much in support of the satkaryavada, but this may not have disturbed the Samkhya commentators much. The main argument of this doctrine having been given already by the phrase asadakaranat (see above), the new interpretation (2) of karanabhavat sat karyam made it possible to present supporting evidence from the Samkhyakarika for the position that parts and wholes are identical. Literature Bronkhorst, Johannes 1992 "Quelques axiomes du Vaisesika," in: Les Cahiers de Philosophie 14 ("L'orient de la pensee: philosophies en Inde"), 95-110. 1996 "The correspondence principle and its impact on Indian philosophy," in: Studies in the History of Indian Thought (Indo-Shisoshi Kenkyu) 8, 1-19. 1997 "Nagarjuna's logic," in: Bauddhavidyasudhakarah. Studies in honour of Heinz Bechert on the occasion of his 65th birthday, ed. by Petra Kieffer-Pulz and Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Swisttal-Odendorf (Indica et Tibetica, 30), pp. 29-37. 1999 Langage et realite: sur un episode de la pensee indienne, Turnhout (Bi bliotheque de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses, 106.) Dwarikadas Shastri, Swami 1981 Tattvasangraha of Acarya Shantaraksita, with the commentary Panjika of Shri Kamalshila, critically edited, 2 vols., second edition, Varanasi. Granoff, Phyllis 1999 "Refutation as commentary: medieval Jain arguments against Samkhya," in: Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques 53(3) (Proceedings of the Conference on Samkhya and Yoga, Lausanne, November 1998). 579-591. Jha, Ganganath: Sharma, Har Dutt; Patkar, M.M. 1965 The Tattva-Kaumudi. Vacaspati Misra's commentary on the Samkhya-Karika. Translated into English by ... Ganganath Jha, with introduction and critical notes by ... Har Durt Sharma, revised and re-edited by ... M.M. Patkar.

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62 Johannes Bronkhorst Poona (Poona Oriental Series, 10.) Kumar, Mahendra 1990 Prameyakamala-martanda by Shri Prabha Chandra (a commentary on Shri Manik Nandi's Pareeksha Mukh Sutra), edited with introduction, indexes etc.. third edition, Delhi (Sri Garib Dass Oriental Series, 94.) 1991 Nyaya-Kumuda-Candra of srimat Prabhacandracarya, a commentary on Bhattakalankadeva's Laghiyastraya, edited with introduction, exhaustive annotations, etc., second edition, Delhi (Sri Garib Dass Oriental Series, 121.) Mainkar, T.G. 1964 The Samkhyakarika of Isvarakrsna, with the commentary of Gaudapada. Translated into English with notes, Poona (Poona Oriental Series, 9.) Oetke, Claus 1999 "Vaisesikasutra 1.2.3," in: Categorisation and Interpretation: Indological and comparative studies from an international Indological meeting at the Department of Comparative Philology, Goteborg University. A volume dedica ed to the memory of Gosta Lieben, ed. by Folke Josephson, Goteborg (Mei jerbergs arkiv for svensk ordforskning, 24.), pp. 23-41. Samghavi, Sukhalala, and Dosi, Becaradasa (ed.) 1924-1931 Sammatitarka-Prakaranam by Siddhasena Divakara, with Abhayadevasuri's commentary, Tattvabodhavidhayini, reprinted in two volumes, Kyoto 1984 (Rinsen Buddhist Text Series, VI-1 & 2.) Sarma, Vishnu Prasad 1922 Sankhyakarika Isvarakrsnaviracita, Matharacaryaviracita-Matharavrttisahita, Benares (Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, 296.) Satkarisarma Vangiya 1970 Samkhya-Karika of srimad isvarakrsna with ... the Jayamangala of Sri San kara, 2nd edition, Varanasi (Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, 296.) Solomon, Esther A. 1973 Samkhya-Saptati-Vrtti V,), Ahmedabad. 1973a Samkhya-Vrtti (V), Ahmedabad. 1974 The Commentaries of the Samkhya Karika - a study, Ahmedabad. Srinivasan, Srinivasa Ayya 1967 Vacaspatimisras Tattvakaumudi. Ein Beitrag zur Textkritik bei kontaminierter Uberlieferung, Hamburg (Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien, 12.) Takakusu, J. 1904 "La Samkhyakarika etudiee a la lumiere de sa version chinoise," in: Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient 4, 1-65 & 978-1064. Wezler, Albrecht, and Motegi, Shujun 1998 Yuktidipika. The most significant commentary on the Samkhyakarika, critically edited, Stuttgart (Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien, 44.)