Refutation of Śakti

But Nyāya does not admit potency as a separate category. It contends that admission of potency is not necessary. In the presence of a gem or a spell fire does not burn, because they are preventive factors (pratibandhaka). When such factors are removed fire produces burning by itself. The answer to the above objection from the Nyāya standpoint is different. In each of the fires produced by grass, wood and a gem a speciality has to be admitted. Fire may be produced by many causes. But their nature is not totally singular. There may be some general characteristics, but they have some special character of their own also. The fire in a lamp can light up the interior of a room. But a fire produced by bits of grass cannot produce light, but gives some heat. Thus we have to accept that fire from grass is different from fire from wood. When we say that grass is the cause of fire the implication is that when there is grass there is fire with a speciality and when it is not there such fire also is not there. There may be fire in the absence of grass, but that fire does not have that speciality, it has a different speciality. So there is no violation of the rule of agreement in absence.^[1]

Udayana points to some fallacies in the view of the Mīmāṃsaka. Potency cannot be perceived by any sense. Thus one may wrongly assume that potency for producing smoke which is present in fire may be present also in some other things different from fire. In that case there can be no inference of fire from smoke. Even if one finds smoke one cannot be sure that fire is there, because the cause of smoke is not fire alone, but anything with a potency for smoke and there may be some other things having this potency. There will be a further objection in the Mīmāṃsā view. Fire is produced from different causes. But it is also observed that in each case there is a special cooperating factor. The cooperating factor for one particular cause cannot help any other cause. There is a fixed rule in this regard. For example, in the case of grass fire is produced by blowing and there can be no fire if the bits of grass are rubbed together. On the other hand, in the case of fire produced from wood rubbing is necessary and blowing has nothing to do there. Again, in the case of fire produced from a gem it is necessary that the ray of the sun is reflected through it. In the Mīmāṃsā view that in the grass etc. there is a potency, no such rule can be maintained. Each has the potency to produce fire and blowing etc. are all cooperating factors. Any of them should be sufficient in any of the cases.^[2]

It may be objected that if the cause-effect relation between fire and grass etc. are justified in this way, then, in the case of every effect a speciality will have to be admitted and there can be no general cause-effect relation. Even in the case of smoke etc. a speciality should be there. But the problem is that in that case it would not be possible to infer fire in general from smoke in general. To this the answer is that when one does not determine the speciality of the effect one may ascertain the cause-effect relation in a general way and inference will be possible. Thus a person may not know that a special kind of fire is produced by grass or wood or a gem, but he may know the general causes of fire. For the production of any kind of fire the general causes are air (nimitta), conjunction of parts (asamavāyi) and component parts (samavāyi). When there are particular cooperating factors there may be produced particular kinds of fires. It is not easy to determine such a relation. The nature of anvaya and vyatireka has to be very carefully studied and then there will be no difficulty.^[3]

According to Nyāya, the nature of the effects is different. Therefore, the nature of causes also should be different. Now the Cārvākas argue that even if we may admit causeeffect relation, we do not find any ground for admitting different causes for different effects. Only one cause may produce different kinds of effects. For example, in the case of a lamp, we find that a single thing produces many kinds of effects. It produces light and it also burns the wick. It also reveals the things present in a room.^[4]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ibid.

[2]:

Ibid.

[3]:

Ibid.

[4]:

Nyāyakusumāñjali 1.7.