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Philosophy of the Rāmānuja School of Thought [ch.
276 posed to exist. Nor are they justified in holding that nature in itself suffers change in every moment, for that virtually amounts to the existence of a persisting entity which suffers modification”.
The Buddhist assumption that things are destroyed entirely, and there are no elements in them that persist (niranvaya-vināša), on the analogy that flames are destroyed without leaving any trace of their existence, is false. For, from various other instances, e.g. the case of jugs, cloth, etc., we find that their destruction means only a change of state and not entire annihilation; and from this analogy it is reasonable to suppose that the elements of the flame that are destroyed are not completely annihilated but persist in invisible forms. Even when a flame is destroyed, the tip of the wick is felt to be slightly warm, and this is certainly to be interpreted as a remnant of the heat possessed by the flame. If the last stage in the destruction of an entity be regarded as lapsing into entire annihilation, it would have no causal efficiency and as such would be nonexistent. If the last stage is non-existent, then its previous stage also would have no causal efficiency and would be non-existent, and so on. This would lead to universal non-existence.
(1) Refutation of the Cārvāka criticism against
the Doctrine of Causality. The problem of causality naturally brings in the question of time relation between the cause and the effect, i.e. whether the effect precedes the cause, or whether the cause precedes the effect, or whether they are simultaneous. If the effect precedes the cause, then it would not depend upon causal operation for its existence and it would then be an eternally existent entity like space. If it is not existent, then it cannot be brought into existence by any means, for a non-existent entity cannot be produced. If the effect were produced before the cause, then the so-called “cause" could not be its cause. If the cause and effect were simultaneous, then it would be difficult to determine which is the cause and which the effect. If the cause precedes the effect, then, again, it may be asked whether the effect was already existent or beside it. If it is already existent, there is no need of causal operation, and that which is to happen
1 sarva-kşanikatvam sādhayitum upakramya sthira-draz'ya-rytti-kşanikavikäravad iti katham drstāntayema teşu ca na trad-abhimatam kşanikattum pradīpa-di vad āśutara-vināśitva-matrena kşaņikato-kteh. Sartartha-siddhi, p. 77.
