An Introduction to Indian Philosophy

by Satischandra Chatterjee

The Sāṅkhyas repudiate this theory of causation and establish their view of satkārya-vāda, namely, that the effect exists in the material cause even before it is produced. This view is based on the following grounds: (a) If the effect were really non-existent in the material cause, then no amount of effort on the part of any agent could bring it into existence. Can any man turn blue into red, or sugar into salt? Hence, when an effect is produced from some material cause, we are to say that it pre-exists in the cause and is only manifested by certain favourable conditions, as when oil is produced by pressing seeds. The activity of efficient causes, like the potter and his tools, is necessary to manifest the effect, pot, which exists implicitly in the clay, (b) There is an invariable relation between a material cause and its effect. A material cause can produce only that effect with which it is causally related. It cannot produce an effect which is in no way related to it. But it cannot be related to what does not exist. Hence the effect must exist in the material cause before it is actually produced, (c) We see that only certain effects can be produced from certain causes. Curd can be got only out of milk and a cloth only out of threads. This shows that the effect somehow exists in the cause. Had it not been so, any effect could be produced from any cause; the potter would not have taken clay to produce pots, instead of taking milk or threads or any other thing, (d) The fac...

The theory of satkārya-vāda has got two different forms, namely, pariṇāma-vāda and vivarta-vāda. According to the former, when effect is produced, there is a real transformation (pariṇāma) of the cause into the effect, e.g. the production of a pot from clay, or of curd from milk. The Sāṅkhya is in favour of this view as a further specification of the theory of satkārya-vāda. The second, which is accepted by the Advaita Vedāntins, holds that the change of the cause into the effect is merely apparent. When we see a snake in a rope, it is not the case that the rope is really transformed into a snake; what happens is that the rope only appears as, but is not really, a snake. So also, God or Brahman does not become

really transformed into the world while we may wrongly think that He undergoes change and becomes the world.

The Yoga mostly accepts the Sāṅkhya epistemology and admits the three pramāṇas of perception, inference and scriptural testimony. It mostly accepts also the metaphysics of the Sāṅkhya with its twenty-five principles, but believes in God as the supreme self distinct from other selves.

In addition to perception, there are five other valid sources of knowledge, admitted by the Mīmāṁsā, namely, inference (anumāna), comparison (upamāna), authority or testimony (śabda), postulation (arthāpatti) and non-perception (anupalabdhi). The last one is admitted only by the school of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and not by that of Prabhākara.

they enjoin some ritual duties and declare that fruits (like attainment of heaven) depend on how devotedly the rituals have been performed. The connection between the actions and such fruits is not such as can be said to have been observed by any person (like the connection between the taking of a prescribed medicine and the cure of a disease). So no person can be said to be the author of the Vedas. It is also not reasonable to hold that the author may be a cunning deceiver (as the Cārvākas suggest). For had it been so, no one would care to study such deceptive works and hand them down to posterity.

Prābhākaras,12 like the Vaiśeṣikas, hold that the statement of a non-Vedic authority yields knowledge through inference based on the reliability of the authority.

the ceremonial details of the rituals absorb its interest, rather than the gods themselves who gradually recede and fade into mere grammatical datives.

the primary object of performing a sacrifice, says an eminent Mīmāṁsaka, is not worship: it is not to please any deity. Nor is it purification of the soul or moral improvement.27 A ritual is to be performed just because the Vedas command us to perform them.

Some of these rituals, it is true, are to be performed in order to enjoy Heaven hereafter or to obtain worldly benefits such as rainfall. But there are some (e.g. nitya and naimittika karmas) which must be performed just because they are enjoined by the Vedas.

reaches, through ritualism, the highest point of its glory, namely, the conce...

s...

Like Kant, the Mīmāṁsā believes that an obligatory action is to be performed not because it will benefit the performer b...

though an obligatory duty is not to be done with any interested motive, yet the Universe is so constituted that a person who performs his ...

Mīmāṁsā postulates in the universe the impersonal moral law of karma,...

source of obligation for Kant is th...

for the Mīmāṁsā it is the impersonal Vedic authority which catego...

highest good in the early Mīmāṁsā conception

attainment of Heaven or a state in which there is unalloyed bliss.

By the disinterested performance of obligatory duties and knowledge of the self, the karmas accumulated in the past are also gradually worn out.

according to the Mīmāṁsā, consciousness and other mental states are not inherent in the soul. They arise only when the soul is related to objects through the body and the organs. The liberated soul, being dissociated from the body and, therefore, from all the organs including manas, cannot have any consciousness: nor can it, therefore, enjoy bliss. Liberation is then desirable not as a state of bliss, but as the total cessation of painful experience. It is a state where the soul remains in its own intrinsic nature, beyond pleasure and pain.30 The soul in its intrinsic state (svastha) can be defined only as substance having existence and a potentiality for consciousness—though no actual consciousness. Some later Bhāṭṭas hold, however, like the Advaitins, that liberation is an experience of joy31

Existence is thus found to be the one undeniable reality persisting through all states, internal and external.39 It can, therefore, be accepted as the substance, and material cause of which all determinate objects and mental states are the diverse manifestations.

pure existence which is the common cause of the entire world is itself formless, though appearing in various forms;

part-less, though divisible into different forms; it is infinite, though it appears in all finite forms. Śaṅkara thus reaches the conception of an infinite, indeterminate (nirviśeṣa) existence as the essence or mater...

it is more reasonable to hold that Absolute existence is of the nature of self-revealing consciousness.

Bhaṭṭa, Kumārila, Sloka-vārtika with Nyāyaratnākara (Chowkhamba, 1898).

Dharmarājādhvarīndra, Vedānta-paribh

Divākara, Siddhasena, Ny

Haribhadra, Ṣaḍ darśana-samuccaya, Com. by Guṇaratna (Asiatic Society Cal., 1905), Com. of Manibhadra (chowkhamba, 1905) Chap, on Jaina.

Haribhadra, Ṣaḍ-darśana-samuccaya (Asiatic Soc., Calcutta, 1905).

Jaimini, Mīmāṁsā-sūtra (with Sahara's Bh

Jayarāśi, Tattvopaplava-si

Mādhavācārya: Sarua-darśana-saṅgraha (Bhandarkar Institute, Poona, 1924).