Chapter 9 - The Equality of the Cause and Effect

81. As the word tamas is often used in the world to refer unseen objects, the potency of the word tamas lies only in the kāryatamas. The darkness that is not perceived remains in an unmanifested form. It is the practice in this world that a particular śabda is primary in a place where it is frequently used and in other places it is secondary. All the realities from avyakta (unmanifest) to pṛthvī (earth) belong to puruṣottama (the Supreme Being).

82. He has those things as His body and acts as a material cause for the subsequent creation of the realities by becoming its substantive. The state of a particular substance prior to the origination is called as upādāna (material cause).

83. The state of the same substance after origination is upādeya (effect). Both upādāna kāraṇa (Cause) and upādeya kārya (effect) are same through the perceptive evidence (Pratyakṣa pramāṇā). This view has been accepted by the learned Vedic Scholars.

84. Only the piece of gold becomes the ear ring (kuṇḍali). Even by the recognition (pratyabhijñā) there arise the knowledge that the clay that was seen earliar had become the pot, potshred and other substances.

85. So, through the statement ‘tadeva idam (this is that)’ we conclude that the cause and effect are not different from each other. If it is contended that the cause and effect are different then, when the threads woven together it must be said that the weight of the threads are different than the heaviness of the cloth. That is, it amounts to admitting two different types of gurutva (heaviness) in one and the same object.

86. If two different gurutva is admitted in the same object, the cause for the fall of the substance (patana) should be doubted. Similarly when the cloth is weighed in a balance the weight of the cloth should be doubled along with the weight of the threads.

87. Another instance of this is the long palm-leaf when roled becomes the tāṭaṅka or ear-ring. This means that the cause is not different from the effect. An objection is raised to the view that the cause and effect are not different from each other on the ground that the use of the words conveying the adjectival and substantive features which are not synonymous and are different.

88. It is replied that one and same substance is conveyed by a different expression as there is a change in the state (avastha) of the object. This is the reason for the change of the expression denoting the object. Also the purpose served by the different states is different. As such there can be no distinction between the cause and effect.^[1]

89. It may be doubted that when the many causal substances are combined to form to a single effect, how is it that there can be the identity or the non-difference of many and one. For instance a cloth is woven by the combination of many threads.

90. It is replied that by the maxim of ‘dānya tad rāśi (a heap of grains)’, the knowledge of many entities of the same kind as a single whole can arise. As for instance in a heap of grains, there arise the knowledge that ‘this is the grain’ not as ‘many grains’. Further the origination of the “new substance” is nothing but the activity or action on the part of the eternal substance in its previous state which holds well in this theory.

91. Therefore, a substance which is already an existent one when it gets modified into another state is termed as orgination of a substance. Therefore, the substance is real and its states are non-eternal.

92. Therefore, in theory of Satkārya, the cause and effect are not different from each other. It is only the change of state that makes one experience as if different substances.

93. For the fear of admitting the origination of a non-existent entity the Sāṅkyas admit the satkāryavāda. For them even the state (avasthā) is pre-existent in the cause itself and as such it gets manifested by the kāraka vyāpāra in the in the later stage.

94-95. In the above view, there is only the manifestation of an already existent factor and not origination then it amounts to admitting manifestation as anādi or beginningless. This would result in the nonfunctioning of the kāraka vyāpāra and as such there is any indirect admission of asatkāryavāda in abhivyakti or manifestation.

96. Therefore based on the Vedic authority and practical experience satkāryavāda has been admitted as the view of Śrī Bhāṣyakāra. Both satkāryavāda and asatkāryavāda cannot be counted as one, as both are mutually opposed.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

For instance, when the clay is in the state of mṛtpiṇḍa, the purpose served by the mṛtpiṇḍa is to construct a wall etc., when the same clay attains the different state namely pot, the purpose served by the pot is to fetch water etc. Because of different functions of one and the same substance in different state it is conveyed by different name.