Jain Journal 1981 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 10

JANUARY, 1981
The arthakriyäkäritva (casual efficiency) is the essence of the doctrines of bhedavāda, abhedavāda and bhedabhedavada. The satkāryavāda of Sankhyas, Asatkāryavada of Naiyayikas and the Buddhists and Sadastkaryavāda of Jainas are well-known. Here we confine ourselves with the views of the Buddhists and Jainas only.
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The Buddhists assert that the "particular" is the only real element of an entity characterised as svalakṣaṇa (thing-in-itself). It is supposed to be momentary and a congration of atoms. A thing accordingly is born and immediately afterwards it is destroyed.10 The substance is nirhetuka (devoid of causes) in the sense that it orginates without the assistance of cause other than its own cause of orgination. Each moment produces another moment destroying itself and thus it presents a sort of continuity of existence. Thus it manages to maintain a cause and effect (karyakāraṇabhāva) relationship.
According to Buddhism, momentariness (kṣaṇabhanguratva) and casual efficiency (kāryakāraṇabhava) are inseparable. It treated momentariness, efficiency, causality and reality as synonymous, and hence argued that an entity is momentary because it was efficient and it was efficient because it was momentary. On the basis of this idea, the Buddhists criticise causal efficiency in a permanent thing. They say that entities come into being either simultaneously (yugapadena) or successively (krameņa). But in a permanent thing, both these ways cannot be effective, since they are not able to originate it immediately due to the non-proximity of a cause. In the first alternation, the substance should originate all the possible effects in the very first moment of its existence. As regards the type of causal efficiency that takes place simultaneously, a permanent thing cannot have any effects, because it can be neither perceived nor inferred. As Santaraksita says, after having brought about all the effects simultaneously, the nature of a thing comprising its capacity for effective action disappears, and therefore the momentary craracter of a thing is an essential factor for causal efficiency. Furthermore they point out that auxiliaries (sahakāri) must follow the things with which they are connected.. These auxiliaries, as a matter of fact, cannot abide with permanent things, because the peculiar condition produced in a thing by auxiliaries would neither be similar nor dissimilar. If they make any difference, the efficiency of the permanent thing in producing the cause is compromised and becomes dependent upon other things in order to be efficient. If, on the contrary, they are not able to make any difference, the arguments for inoperative
10 Prameyaratnamala, p. 4; also see the 8th chapter of the Tattvasangraha.