________________
SAUTRĀNTIKA FLUXISM
the effect with the cause. But in the Buddhist theory the effect does not happen when the cause is in existence, and it happens only when the supposed cause is non-existent. How can there be concomitance? How can again the Buddhist explain that the effect should happen in immediately succeeding moment and not in remote future or past when the cause has no existence at the time of the effect's occurrence ? There can be no difference, as we have said, between a remote past and an immediate past, because the absence of the cause is uniforin in both cases. The question comes to be "How can the non-existent be the cause of the existent ?" One might equally affirm that an eternally existent might produce an occasional effect. If it is urged that there is no concomitance between an eternally existent fact and an occasional event, because the existence of the effect is not concomitant with that of the cause, and the cause is present when the effect ceases to be. But this is also the case with the Buddhist when he affirms that the effect comes into being during the absence of the cause at a particular time and place, but not during the whole period of its absence in the uncounted past and in unending future. And this amounts to the denial of the law of causality which was the cornerstone of the Buddha's religious and philosophical edifice. Not only this, the self-contradiction obtrudes itself most unabashedly when the Buddhist Auxist makes causal efficiency the criterion of reality and ends in the conclusion that the effect is independent of the cause, which is deducible from the proposition that the effect comes into being when the cause is absent. Thus causality is as inexplicable in the theory of flux as it is in the theory of eternally unchanging cause.
There is another serious difficulty in the doctrine of flux. It is a matter of universal experience that the continuous identity of the self as well as of objects is felt by all. This felt identity is asserted to be illusion by the fluxist. But what is the basis of this illusion ? Illusion presupposes a previous cognition of the object. A man who has never experienced silver cannot mistake the shell for silver. Identity is inseparable from continuity. But as there is not real continuity anywhere according to the Buddhist, how can there be such illusion of identity possible? The supposed continuity is said to be formed by discrete moments which come into being and pass out of existence. So there is no real continuity anywhere. It is affirmed by the Buddhist himself that the discrete moments when not felt as distinct create the illusion of identity. We have shown that this illusion is impossible. But even admitting for the sake of argument that such an illusion may be possible, the question arises 'How can one continuum be distinguished from another continuum ?' Now it is a felt fact that the chair is different from the table. It is not the
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
