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But it is not so. Lord Mahā vira does not intend to state that if the effect is corporeal or incorporeal, all its causes should be accordingly corporeal or incorporeal. Karman alone is not the cause of pleasure-pain; soul too is the cause; and of the two it is the soul which is the material or constituent cause and the karma is the asamavāyi-kāraṇa (non-constituent cause); hence t is but proper that the soul, the material cause should be incorporeal as its effects, pleasure-pain are incorporeal; and it is not at all necessary to infer that the asamaváyi-kāraņa, karma should be incorporeal because pleasure, etc. are such. Hence there is no difficulty in establishing that the cause viz. karma of body, etc. which are corporeal is corporeal (1927-1929).
If karma though corporeal is established as the cause of pleasure and pain, it is not reasonable to state that there is abundance of pain simply on account of the decline of merit. But abundance of pain is certainly on account of the abundance of its corresponding karman, viz. pāpa-karma, because there is abundant experience of pain; just as the experience of the abundance of pleasure is caused by the abundance of the corresponding karma, viz. punya-karma (1930-31).
Moreover the abundant pain experienced by embodied souls is not caused merely by the decline in merit; but an external factor, viz. abundance of undesired food, etc. too is necessary. If it be caused merely by the decline in punya, then it should appear even when there is the decline of desired food alone which accrues on account of punya, and would not depend on the abundance of the force of external means like undesired food, etc. which accrue on account of pāpa and which are opposed to it. The purport of this discussion is that if pain were caused merely by the decline of punya, then it would be brought about merely by the decline in the means such as desired food, etc. which are attained by the rise of punya, but this is not what we find; on the contrary it is caused by virtue of the abundance of the means like undesired food, etc. which are opposed to it. Decline of merit can cause decline of desired resources, but never increase of undesired
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