Book Title: Satapatha Bramhana Part 05
Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford


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Page 1671
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II ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 16.
463
is an attribute of things, and cannot therefore be a substance and a cause. By the 'being' of a thing we understand the attribute of its being suitable for some definite practical effect; while its non-being' means its suitability for an effect of an opposite nature.-Should it on the other hand be held that substances only have being, the (unacceptable) consequence would be that actions, and so on, are nonexistent. And if (to avoid this consequence) it were said that the being of actions, and so on, depends on their connexion with substances, it would be difficult to show (what yet should be shown) that 'being' is everywhere of one and the same nature. Moreover, if everything were non-different in so far as 'being,' there would be a universal consciousness of the nature of everything, and from this there would follow a general confusion of all good and evil (i.e. every one would have conscious experience of everything. This point we have explained before. For all these reasons non-difference can only have the meaning set forth by us. Here the following doubt may arise. In the case of childhood, youth, and so on, we observe that different ideas and different terms are applied to different states of one and the same being; in the case of clay, wood, gold, &c., on the other hand, we observe that different ideas and terms are applied to different things. On what ground then do you determine that in the case of causes and effects, such as e. g. clay and jars, it is mere difference of state on which the difference of ideas and terms is based ? To this question the next Satra gives a reply.
16. And because (the cause) is perceived in the existence of the effect.
This means-because gold which is the cause is perceived in the existence of its effects, such as earrings and the like; i.e. on account of the recognition of gold which expresses itself in the judgment 'this earring is gold.' We do not on the other hand perceive the presence of clay, and so on, in gold, and so on. The case of the cause and the effect is thus analagous to that of the child and the youth: the word 'effect' denotes nothing else but the causal substance which
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