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108
SAMAYASĀRA
milk and so on. But according to that doctrine which teaches that the effect is non-existent (before its actual production) all this should be possible. For if before their actual origination all effects are equally non-existent in any causal substance, why then should curds be produced from milk only and not from clay also and jar from clay only and not from milk as well.
Again he writes, “As the ideas of cause and effect on the one hand and of the qualities on the other are not separate ones, as for instance the ideas of a horse and a buffalo, it follows that the identity of the cause and the leffect as well as of the substance and its qualities has to be admitted.
From these quotations it is quite clear that Sankara's conception of cause and effect is the same as Kundakunda's. The former following the traditions of Vedantism and the latter the tradition of Jaina metaphysics. Both maintain that the cause and effect are identical and that particular cause can produce an effect entirely identical in nature with the cause. They both maintain that the cause and effect are identical in nature. Hence they both reject the view that the effect is non-existent in the cause and occurs as a new thing just after the cause. And therefore they both maintain that the effect is present in the cause though only in the latent form. Clay is shaped into a jar and gold is transformed into an ornament. The jar as such is not present in clay already, nor is the ornament as such present in gold. Therefore the effect is the result of causal manifestation. Thus according to Jaina Metaphysics, the effect is identical with the cause and yet the effect is slightly different from the cause. From the point of view of the underlying substance the effect and cause are identical. From the point of view of manifested form and change, the effect is different from the cause. Thus ca use and effect may be said to be identical in one sense and different from another point of view. In the last quoted paragraph Sankara applies the same doctrine of identity and difference also to the relation between substance and its qualities. The substance and its qualities are inherently identical though they are different in another aspect. This attitude of Sankara is identical with the Jaina attitude as to the relation between Dravya and Guna, substance and attributes. Both Sankara's Vedantism and Kundakunda's metaphysics are at one in rejecting the Vaiseșika doctrine that substance and qualities are two different distinct categories brought together by a third category Samavāya which conjoins the two. Rejecting this Vaišeşika view of the difference between substance and qualities it is maintained by both Sankara and Kundakunda that they are identical in nature.
ONE AND THE MANY To speak of a thing as one or many is entirely dependent upon the point of view you adopt. The same material clay may be transformed into various clay vessels and the same material substance gold may be transformed into various kinds of ornaments. If you emphasise
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