Tattva Sangraha Vol 1

SR No.: 007608
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kamlashila, Ganganatha Jha
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
Publication Year: 1937
Total Pages: 753
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 42 MB

Page 297

TATTVASANGRAHA: CHAPTER IX.
or when it is itself born;-the former alternative cannot be right; as the Cause does not exist prior to the production of the Effect, and as such, is devoid of all potentiality. If it be said that "It produces the effect when it is born, and then, being endowed with potentialities, it produces the Effect", -the answer is-if the Potency were there, etc.'; i.e. if the Cause has its potency while it is in the state of having been born, then, like the character of the Cause, the Effect also would be already born; and under the circumstances, on what would the potency of the Cause operate ?-Thus the doctrine that Cause and Effect are simultaneous is clearly contrary to the authority of Inference.-(515)
302
Says the Opponent: "The relation of Cause and Effect is the same as the relation of Agent and Object'; and as such it would be highly incongruous if the two factors appeared at different times. For instance, between the Potter and the Jar, the relation of Agont and Object' is perceived only when the two are there at the same time ".
The answer to this is provided in the following
TEXTS (516-517).
AS A MATTER OF FACT, WHEN THE CAUSE PRODUCES ITS EFFECT, IT DOES NOT DO SO BY HOLDING THE EFFECT IN THE MANNER OF THE PAIR OF TONGS, BY REASON OF WHICH THERE WOULD BE SIMULTANEITY BETWEEN THE TWO. NOR DOES THE EFFECT COME INTO EXISTENCE, BY FIRMLY EMBRACING ITS CAUSE, IN THE MANNER OF THE LOVER EMBRACING THE BELOVED, BY REASON
OF WHICH THE TWO COULD BE REGARDED AS COMING INTO
EXISTENCE AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME.
(516-517)
COMMENTARY.
If, in the producing of the Effect, the Cause operated in the manner of the Pair of Tongs,-or if the Effect, in the process of coming into existence were to do so by embracing its Cause in the manner in which a woman is embraced, then there might be simultaneity and co-existence of the two always. As a matter of fact, however, the whole of this universe is entirely devoid of activity, there is, in reality, no active agent' or 'objective' at all,-apart from 'Convention.-Such is the sense of the whole answer.
Prakṛti'-is cause.-(516-517)
Opponent "If that is so, and everything, the Cause as well as the Effect, is inactive, how is it that people are found to make use of such verbal