History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

Page 1456

xx] Ontological categories according to Veňkațanātha 267 and the effect. But we see that the cloth is different from threads1. If the effect is regarded as identical with the cause on the ground that though there cannot be any contact between the effect and the cause yet the former is never outside the latter, the obvious reply is that in the view that the effect is not a substance there need not be any contact, and if it is a property of the cause it is never beside it. On the view that the effect is a manifestation, it may be asked whether such a manifestation is eternal or itself an effect. In the former case no causal operation is necessary for the manifestation. In the latter case, if the manifestation be regarded as a separate effect, then it virtually amounts to a partial sacrifice of sat-kārya-vāda. If for the manifestation of a manifestation causal operation is necessary, then that will lead to a vicious infinite. Moreover, if manifestation is itself regarded as an effect, then since it did not exist before, its coming into being would involve the sacrifice of sat-kārya-vāda.
It may be urged that the production of an effect is not of the nature of the effect itself, for one always speaks of an effect as being produced. Thus the effect is different from production. If this is admitted, then what is the difficulty in accepting the view that the effect may be manifested? If the word production be considered more logical, then with regard to it also there may be the same question, whether a production is produced or manifested, and in the former case there would be infinite regress, and in the latter no necessity for the causal operation. With regard to the manifestation also there would be the same difficulty as to whether it is produced or manifested, and in both cases there would be vicious infinite. The reply to this is that production means the operation of the causal agents, and if this operation be again admitted to be produced by the operation of its own causal constituent, and that by another, there is no doubt an infinite regress, but it is not vicious and is admitted by all. When there is a movement of a specific nature in the thread, we say a cloth is produced, or rather at the very first moment of such a movement involving the cloth-state of the thread
1 tad-dharmatva-hetū-kta-doşād eva ubhayatra pațā-vasthā tantvā-tmā na bhavati tantubhyo bhinnatvāt ghatavad iti prati-prayogasya sakyatvācca. Sarvārtha-siddhi, p. 6o.
tādātmya-virahe'pi anyatarasyā'dravyatvāt samyoga-bhāvah tad-dharmasvabhāvatvād eva aprāpti-parihārāt iti anyathā-siddhasya asādhakatvāt. Ibid. p. 61.