Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Sukhlal Sanghavi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 49

Trends Seeking for a Subtle Cause
a consideration of the root-cause. Here there was conjoined another philosophical trend as well. Thus somebody thought that if the visible world is of the form of something existent then its cause Sat ( = existent) too must be something ever-existent. Thus he identified the root worldcause in the form of sat itself. Someone else put to himself the question : Just as the visible entities are non-existent" and yet come into existence similarly why should it not be the case that the element sat conceived in the form of the root world-cause originated out of Asat (=non existent) ? This question must have impelled some other thinker to assume that the root world-cause must be Asat or (Nasti - does-not-exist). Among the Philosophical trends enumerated so far that positing Sat and that positing Asat were absolutely opposed to one another. This oposition obtaining among the thinkers was fundamental. Hence in Taitti. iya one sage asked as to how sat can originate out of what is absolutely of the from of asat or nāsti - for certainly, an effect cannot be the opposite of what happens to be its cause. On account of this question a way to synthesize the two extremist viewpoints too occurred to someone. He sald that what is of the form of asat or nasti is not something absolutely non-extistent but something that has not yet become manifest bearing a name and a form. That sat originates out of it only means that it becomes thus manifest. All these views are found expressed in Upadişads at different places.2
The denial of sat and asat that we find in Nāsadiyasukta is indeed a denial of the just mentioned two extremist views. But to the author of the hymn the character of the originating cause appears to be that of something unmanifest. That is why even after denying to it a multiplicity of couples with mutually contradictory qualities he indicates the working presence of the originating cause by the word 'änidavatam' and puts forth its character in the form of a question - all which is a way of expressing the idea that the originating cause in question is something indescribable,
Asad vă idam agra āsit. Tato vai sad ajayata, -Taittiriyopanişad 2,7 Naiveha kiñcanägra äsit. Mrtyunaivedam ävrtamāsit.-Brhadaranyakopanīşad 1.2.1 Asad evedam agra āsīt. Tat sad āsīt. Tat samabhavat. Tadandam niravartata.
-Chandogyopanişad 3.19.1 Taddhaika āhur asad evedam agra asid ekam evädyitiyam. Tasmad asatah saj jayata. Kutastu khalu sonyaivam syad iti hovāca ka tham asatah saj jāveteti. Sattvam eva somyedam agra āsīd ekam evädvitiyam.-Chăndogyopanişad 6.2
Ko addhā veda ka iha pra vocat kuta ājātu kuta iyam vispstih / Arvāg devā asya visarjanenā'tha ko veda yata ābabhūva 1/611 Iyam visystir yat ābabhūva yadi vă dadhe yadi vā na/ Yo asyā'dhyaksah parame vyomant so anga veda yadi va pa veda 17.
-Rgveda, Näsadiyasükta 10.129 . Who knows it directly? Who would answer the questions : Out of what sort of cause has it originated ? From where did this creation take place ?' The gods