Note (return) — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION (continued 3)

We proceed to consider some further arguments opposed to the doctrine that the effect does not exist in the cause.—That doctrine involves the conclusion that the actual origination of an effect is without an agent and thus devoid of substantial being. For origination is an action, and as such requires an agent298, just as the action of walking does. To speak of an action without an agent would be a contradiction. But if you deny the pre-existence of the effect in the cause, it would have to be assumed that whenever the origination of a jar, for instance, is spoken of the agent is not the jar (which before its origination did not exist) but something else, and again that when the origination of the two halves of the jar is spoken of the agent is not the two halves but something else. From this it would follow that the sentence, 'the jar is originated' means as much as 'the potter and the other (operative) causes are originated299.' But as a matter of fact the former sentence is never understood to mean the latter; and it is, moreover, known that at the time when the jar originates, the potter, &c. are already in existence.—Let us then say, the opponent resumes, that origination is the connexion of the effect with the existence of its cause and its obtaining existence as a Self.—How, we ask in reply, can something which has not yet obtained existence enter into connexion with something else? A connexion is possible of two existing things only, not of one existing and one non-existing thing or of two non-existing things. To something non-existing which on that account is indefinable, it is moreover not possible to assign a limit as the opponent does when maintaining that the effect is non-existing before its origination; for experience teaches us that existing things only such as fields and houses have limits, but not non-existing things. If somebody should use, for instance, a phrase such as the following one, 'The son of a barren woman was king previously to the coronation of Pûrnavarman' the declaration of a limit in time implied in that phrase does not in reality determine that the son of the barren woman, i.e. a mere non-entity, either was or is or will be king. If the son of a barren woman could become an existing thing subsequently to the activity of some causal agent, in that case it would be possible also that the non-existing effect should be something existing, subsequently to the activity of some causal agent. But we know that the one thing can take place no more than the other thing; the non-existing effect and the son of the barren woman are both equally non-entities and can never be.—But, the asatkâryavâdin here objects, from your doctrine there follows the result that the activity of causal agents is altogether purposeless. For if the effect were lying already fully accomplished in the cause and were non-different from it, nobody would endeavour to bring it about, no more than anybody endeavours to bring about the cause which is already fully accomplished previously to all endeavour. But as a matter of fact causal agents do endeavour to bring about effects, and it is in order not to have to condemn their efforts as altogether useless that we assume the non-existence of the effect previously to its origination.—Your objection is refuted, we reply, by the consideration that the endeavour of the causal agent may be looked upon as having a purpose in so far as it arranges the causal substance in the form of the effect. That, however, even the form of the effect (is not something previously non-existing, but) belongs to the Self of the cause already because what is devoid of Selfhood cannot be begun at all, we have already shown above.—Nor does a substance become another substance merely by appearing under a different aspect. Devadatta may at one time be seen with his arms and legs closely drawn up to his body, and another time with his arms and legs stretched out, and yet he remains the same substantial being, for he is recognised as such. Thus the persons also by whom we are surrounded, such as fathers, mothers, brothers, &c., remain the same, although we see them in continually changing states and attitudes; for they are always recognised as fathers, mothers, brothers, and so on. If our opponent objects to this last illustrative example on the ground that fathers, mothers, and so on remain the same substantial beings, because the different states in which they appear are not separated from each other by birth or death, while the effect, for instance a jar, appears only after the cause, for instance the clay, has undergone destruction as it were (so that the effect may be looked upon as something altogether different from the cause); we rebut this objection by remarking that causal substances also such as milk, for instance, are perceived to exist even after they have entered into the condition of effects such as curds and the like (so that we have no right to say that the cause undergoes destruction). And even in those cases where the continued existence of the cause is not perceived, as, for instance, in the case of seeds of the fig-tree from which there spring sprouts and trees, the term 'birth' (when applied to the sprout) only means that the causal substance, viz. the seed, becomes visible by becoming a sprout through the continual accretion of similar particles of matter; and the term 'death' only means that, through the secession of those particles, the cause again passes beyond the sphere of visibility. Nor can it be said that from such separation by birth and death as described just now it follows that the non-existing becomes existing, and the existing non-existing; for if that were so, it would also follow that the unborn child in the mother's womb and the new-born babe stretched out on the bed are altogether different beings.