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INDIAN LOGIC
it is the Sānkhyite's argument that prakrti possesses pleasure etc. because things inanimate which are a product of prakrti cause pleasure etc. - it being his understanding that the cause must possess what the effect exhibits - Jayanta decides to criticise the Sānkhya doctrine of causation in general.65 The Sārkhyite's central point is that if an effect does not already exist in the cause then an attempt to produce this effect should be like an attempt to produce something fictitious while about a fictitious thing there can be no rule that such and such a cause is required to produce it. This whole mode of talking makes no sense to Jayanta who simply wonders how (for example) a jar can be said to already exist in the clay out of which it is subsequently produced; certainly, the jar as such is not present there in the clay while it makes no sense to say that it is present there in the form of clay (for clay is clay, not a jar).7 But then the Sānkhyite has submitted that to produce a non-existing effect is like producing a fictitious thing; Jayanta retorts : “We say that what is something non-existent is produced, not that what is produced is something non-existent. Thus there certainly are non-existent things which are fictitious and hence incapable of being produced, but there are also non-existent things which are not fictitious and hence capable of being produced. As for what non-existent things are produced through what causes, we have been taught that by the generations of our predecessors.”68 To this is added : “Really, the boot is on the other leg. For there should be no point in producing an effect which already exists. Moreover, since a causal chain can be traced back as long as one wishes any thing can be proved to be the cause of anything. Thus one can say that the riverside sands where sesamum-seeds are sown are the ultimate cause of the sesamum-oil so that there should be nothing incongruous about expecting the presence of the sesamun-oil in sands. Or take another example. The food consumed is ultimately turned into excretion, but it would be abominable to say that excretion is present in this food." There is much sense in what Jayanta says, particularly in view of the crude way in which the Sankhyite has pleaded his case.
