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DOCTRINE OF PRIMORDIAL MATTER.
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existent, and that such previously non-existent effect is quite amenable to the potency of the cause".
To this the Sankhya makes the following reply:
TEXT (12).
"THAT TO WHICH NO PECULIARITY CAN BE ATTRIBUTED, WHICH 15 FORMLESS AND UNMODIFIABLE, HOW COULD SUCH A THING BE PRODUCED BY CAUSES,—WHEN ANY MODIFICATION WOULD INVOLVE THE LOSS OF ITS VERY
ESSENCE ? -(12)
COMBIENTARY,
The Sankhya reasons as follows:-" The acceptance of the viow that the Effect produced has been non-existent implies that causes produice an effect which is incapable of being produced by thom. For instance, that which is non-existent is formless-i.e. chiructerless ;-that which is formless is, like tlie Hare's Horn, sumotling to which no peculiarity can be attributer,
-ie. which cannot be regarded as having any characteristics ;--and that to which no peculiarity can be attributed must be modifiable, immutallo, like Akasha ;-how can such a thing, wlich las not acquired a specific form, be produced by any cause?-It raight be argued that from the fact of its being perceived in its existing state (after being produced) it follows thnt it does become modified'. -The answer to that is that my modification would involve the loss of its very essence. If modification is admitted, then its pery essence,-essential character, which is described is consisting of formlessness,
-trould become lost. As a matter of fact, unless tho non-existent thing las relinquished its essential character (of formlessness), it cannot become existent; and if it does relinquish the essential character, then it would not le true that the non-existent (formless) thing has become existent (with form): the form of the Existent is entirely different froin the form of the non-e.cistent,
-the two being inutual contradictorios. Hence what is non-eristent cannot be produced. If it be admitted that a Causo can produce such a thing—then it would be admitted that Causes actually produce only such things als are incapable of being produced ! Certainly what is incapable of being produced can never be produced ; as we find in the case of the Sky-lotus. From all this it follows that the Sankhya argument (the fourth in the karikā) is unanswerable."-(12)
In support of the fifth reason [stated in the Sankhyakurikā, -Because The effect is of the essence of the Cause) --we have the following
