The Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha / Or, Review of the Different Systems of Hindu Philosophy

by Madhava

"In a reciprocal contradiction there exists no ulterior alternative;

"Nor is their unity in contradictories, there being a repugnance in the very statement."[33]

And this succession and simultaneity being excluded from the permanent, and also excluding from the permanent all practical efficiency, determine existence of the alternative of momentariness.—q.e.d.

Perhaps some one may ask: Why may not practical efficiency reside in the non-fluxional (or permanent)? If so, this is wrong, as obnoxious to the following dilemma. Has your "permanent" a power of past and future practical efficiency during its exertion of present practical efficiency or no? On the former alternative (if it has such power), it cannot evacuate such past and future efficiency, because we cannot deny that it has power, and because we infer the consequence, that which can at any time do anything does not fail to do that at that time, as, for instance, a complement of causes, and this entity is thus powerful. On the latter alternative (if the permanent has no such power of past and future agency), it will never do anything, because practical efficiency results from power only; what at any time does not do anything, that at that time is unable to do it, as, for instance, a piece of stone does not produce a germ; and this entity while exerting its present practical efficiency, does not exert its past and future practical efficiency. Such is the contradiction.

You will perhaps rejoin: By assuming successive subsidiaries, there is competent to the permanent entity a successive exertion of past and future practical efficiency. If so, we would ask you to explain: Do the subsidiaries assist the entity or not? If they do not, they are not required; for if they do nothing, they can have nothing to do with the successive exertion. If they do assist the thing, is this assistance (or supplementation) other than the thing or not? If it is other than the thing, then this adscititious (assistance) is the cause, and the non-momentary entity is not the cause: for the effect will then follow, by concomitance and non-concomitance, the adventitious supplementation. Thus it has been said:

"What have rain and shine to do with the soul? Their effect is on the skin of man;

"If the soul were like the skin, it would be non-permanent; and if the skin were like the soul, there could be no effect produced upon it."

Perhaps you will say: The entity produces its effect, together with its subsidiaries. Well, then (we reply), let the entity not give up its subsidiaries, but rather tie them lest they fly with a rope round their neck, and so produce the effect which it has to produce, and without forfeiting its own proper nature. Besides (we continue), does the additament (or supplementation) constituted by the subsidiaries give rise to another additament or not? In either case the afore-mentioned objections will come down upon you like a shower of stones. On the alternative that the additament takes on another additament, you will be embarrassed by a many-sided regress in infinitum. If when the additament is to be generated another auxiliary (or additament) be required, there will ensue an endless series of such additaments: this must be confessed to be one infinite regress. For example, let a seed be granted to be productive when an additament is given, consisting of a complement of objects such as water, wind, and the like, as subsidiaries; otherwise an additament would be manifested without subsidiaries. Now the seed in taking on the additament takes it on with the need of (ulterior) subsidiaries; otherwise, as there would always be subsidiaries, it would follow that a germ would always be arising from the seed. We shall now have to add to the seed another supplementation by subsidiaries themselves requiring an additament. If when this additament is given, the seed be productive only on condition of subsidiaries as before, there will be established an infinite regression of additaments to (or supplementations of) the seed, to be afforded by the subsidiaries.

Again, we ask, does the supplementation required for the production of the effect produce its effect independently of the seed and the like, or does it require the seed and the like? On the first alternative (if the supplementation works independently), it would ensue that the seed is in no way a cause. On the second (if the supplementation require the seed), the seed, or whatever it may be that is thus required, must take on a supplementation or additament, and thus there will be over and over again an endless series of additaments added to the additament constituted by the seed; and thus a second infinite regression is firmly set up.

In like manner the subsidiary which is required will add another subsidiary to the seed, or whatever it may be that is the subject of the additions, and thus there will be an endless succession of additaments added to the additaments to the seed which is supplemented by the subsidiaries; and so a third infinite regression will add to your embarrassment.