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110
SAMAYASĀRA
THE DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION
Kundakunda following the tradition of Jaina metaphysics speaks of two different causes, Upadana kārana and Nimitta karana, material cause and instrumental cause. For example, clay is the material out of which the jar is made. In this case the material out of which the thing is made is the Upadana kāraṇa. For transforming the clay into the Jar you require the operating agent, the potter, the potter's wheel on which the clay is moulded, and the stick with which he turns the wheel and so on. All these come under the Nimitta kárana or the instrumental cause. This distinction is considered very important in Jaina metaphysics. The Upādāna kāraņa or the material cause must be identical with its effect. There can be no difference in nature and attributes between the material cause and its effect. From clay we can only obtain a mud-pot. Out of gold you can only obtain a golden ornament. Out of gold you cannot obtain a mud-pot nor out of clay can you obtain a golden ornament. The relation between the material cause and its effect is exactly corresponding to the modern conception of Causation, that wherever the cause is present the effect would be present and wherever the effect would be present the cause must have been present. Again negatively, if the cause is absent the effect must also be absent and conversely if the effect is absent the cause must also be absent. Following this doctrine of identity between the cause and effect, Kundakunda maintains consistent with the Jaina metaphysics, that the Cetana cause can only produce Cetana effects, and that non-Cetana cause can only produce non-Cetana effects. Accordingly he has to reject the Vedantic doctrine of deriving both Cetana and non-Cetana effect from the real causes of Brahma which cannot contain in himself, the contradictory causal potencies to produce two contradictory effects. Strangely the Vedāntic doctrine which maintains the Brahma to be the ultimate cause of all reality also maintains the non-difference in cause and effect.
Commenting on these sūtras, Salikara writes, "For the following reason also the effect is non-different from the cause, because only when the cause exists the effect is observed to exist and not when it does not exist. For instance, only when the clay exists, the jar is observed to exist. That it is not a general rule when one thing exists, another also is observed to exist, appears for instance, from the fact that a horse which is other or different from a cow is not observed to exist only when a cow exists. Nor is the jar observed to exist only when the potter exists. For in that case the nondifference does not exist although the relation between the two is that of an operating cause and its effect."
Again he writes "Ordinary experience teaches us that those who wish to produce certain effect such as curds, or earthern jars, or golden ornaments employ such as milk, clay and gold. Those who wish to produce sour-milk do not employ clay, nor do those who intend to make jars employ
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