Verse 1478

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

नहि स्वभावः कार्यं वा स्वभावात्कारणादृते ।
भेदानिमित्तताप्राप्तेस्ते विनाऽस्ति न चानुमा ॥ १४७८ ॥

nahi svabhāvaḥ kāryaṃ vā svabhāvātkāraṇādṛte |
bhedānimittatāprāpteste vinā'sti na cānumā || 1478 ||

(a) there can be no nature (or character) without a nature (or character); (b) nor can there be effect without a cause. Because (otherwise) there would be the incongruities of (a) ‘deviation from nature’, and (b) ‘causelessness and without these two (relationships) there can be no inference.—(1478)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

The following might be urged—“How is it known that the well-ascertained Probans never fails? There is no reason why this should bo so.”

The answer to this is as follows:—[see verse 1478 above]

There are only two kinds of Probans—(1) Nature of the thing and (2) Being an Effect; ‘non-apprehension’ being included under ‘Nature’, And these two kinds of Probans are not possible except where there is a Probandum, called ‘Nature’ and ‘Cause’,—by reason of which there could be ‘fallibility’ (falsity) in the Probans.

“Why is it not possible?”

‘Because otherwise, etc. etc.’,—There is copulative compounding between ‘bheda’ and ‘animittatā’; the sense is that the Probans which forms the Nature of the thing would cease to be its ‘nature’; and the Probans which is an effect would come to be without cause; and yet no Probans is admitted which forms neither the ‘nature’ nor the ‘effect’ (of the Probandum),—except when there is no connection and when there is no Invariable Concomitance.

‘Without these two’,—i.e. as ‘nature’ and as ‘effect’. The word has the Dual Ending.—(1478)