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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
But, an objection is raised, he also who holds the theory of the previous non-existence of the effect, can really do nothing with the activity of the agent. For as, on his view, the effect has no existence before it is originated, the activity of the agent must be supposed to operate elsewhere than on the effect; and as this 'elsewhere' comprises without distinction all other things, it follows that the agent's activity with reference to threads may give rise to waterpots also (not only to cloth).-Not so, the Vaiseshika replies. Activity applied to a certain cause gives rise to those effects only the potentiality of which inheres in that
cause.
432
Now, against all this, the following objection is raised. The effect is non-different from the cause. For in reality there is no such thing as an effect different from the cause, since all effects, and all empirical thought and speech about effects, are based on Nescience. Apart from the causal substance, clay, which is seen to be present in effected things such as jars, the so-called effect, i. e. the jar or pot, rests altogether on Nescience. All effected things whatever, such as jars, waterpots, &c., viewed as different from their causal substance, viz. clay, which is perceived to exist in these its effects, rest merely on empirical thought and speech, and are fundamentally false, unreal; while the causal substance, i. e. clay, alone is real. In the same way the entire world in so far as viewed apart from its cause, i. e. Brahman which is nothing but pure non-differenced Being, rests exclusively on the empirical assumption of Egoity and so on, and is false; while reality belongs to the causal Brahman which is mere Being. It follows that there is no such thing as an effect apart from its cause; the effect in fact is identical with the cause. Nor must you object to our theory on the ground that the corroborative instance of the silver erroneously imagined in the shell is inappropriate because the non-reality of such effected things as jars is by no means well proved while the non-reality of the shell-silver is so proved; for as a matter of fact it is determined by reasoning that it is the causal substance of jars, viz. clay, only that is real while the
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