Verse 350-351

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

अथवाऽस्थान एवायमायासः क्रियते यतः ।
क्षणभङ्गप्रसिद्ध्यैव प्रकृत्यादि निराकृतम् ॥ ३५० ॥
उक्तस्य वक्ष्यमाणस्य जात्यादेश्चाविशेषतः ।
निषेधाय ततः स्पष्टं क्षणभङ्गः प्रसाध्यते ॥ ३५१ ॥

athavā'sthāna evāyamāyāsaḥ kriyate yataḥ |
kṣaṇabhaṅgaprasiddhyaiva prakṛtyādi nirākṛtam || 350 ||
uktasya vakṣyamāṇasya jātyādeścāviśeṣataḥ |
niṣedhāya tataḥ spaṣṭaṃ kṣaṇabhaṅgaḥ prasādhyate || 351 ||

Or, all this effort (to refute the various doctrines regarding the origin of the world) is made needlessly; as all such doctrines are really set aside by the well-established doctrine of the ‘perfetual flux’ of things.—Hence it is this ‘perpetual flux’ that is going to be clearly established for the refutation of all that has been referred to above and all such things as the ‘universal’ and the like which are going to be mentioned later on,—a refutation that is applied equally to all those doctrines.—(350-351)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

The Author has spoken of his doctrine (in the opening lines of his Introduction) as ‘mobile’, ‘impermanent’. The following Texts proceed with the proof in support of this:—[see verse 350-351 above]

As a matter of fact, by establishing the Perpetual Flux of things, all the various entities postulated by others,—such as those of ‘Primordial Matter’ ‘God’ and the like—become discarded at a single stroke; under the circumstances, all the effort that we have put forth in the above extensive portions of our work, towards the setting forth in detail of the several doctrines and refuting them, is practically useless; that is to say, all these are refuted by the much simpler method (of establishing the Perpetual Flux), That is to say, ‘Primordial Matter’ and the rest are not held by others to be undergoing destruction immediately on appearance, or to be liable to absolute destruction; hence by the establishing of the doctrine of ‘Perpetual Flux’ which includes all things, all those postulated entities become set aside; holding this opinion as we do, we proceed to establish this ‘Perpetual Flux’ with special care,—for the purpose of discarding (a) all those doctrines that have been discussed so far,—beginning with ‘Primordial Matter’ and ending with ‘Pudgala’,—and (b) all those that are going to be discussed later on,—such as the ‘Universal’, ‘Quality’, ‘Substance’, etc., Words and their denotation, the Means and the Objects of Right Cognition, the Thing of Variegated Character coloured with the various tints of the Emerald, etc., an Entity continuing during all these points of time, the four Elemental Substances postulated by the Cārvāka and the Materialists, and the Mass of Words (Veda) posited by the followers of Jaimini.

‘Clearly’,—because for the proof set forth, there is a Reason that satisfies all the tine© conditions of the valid Probans.

What is meant by this is that in reality, the whole purpose of our philosophy reaches its culminating point in this examination of the ‘Permanent Character’ of things.—(350-351)

The Author proceeds to show how this Perpetual Flux is established:—[see verse 352 next]