Now (or the other grand alternative), let it be granted that a supplementation identical with the entity (the seed, or whatever it may be) is taken on. If so, the former entity, that minus the supplementation, is no more, and a new entity identical with the supplementation, and designated (in the technology of Buddhism) kurvad rúpa (or effect-producing object), comes into being: and thus the tree of my desires (my doctrine of a universal flux) has borne its fruit.
Practical efficiency, therefore, in the non-momentary is inadmissible. Nor is practical efficiency possible apart from succession in time; for such a possibility is redargued by the following dilemma. Is this (permanent) entity (which you contend for) able to produce all its effects simultaneously, or does it continue to exist after production of effects? On the former alternative, it will result that the entity will produce its effects just as much at one time as at another; on the second alternative, the expectation of its permanency is as reasonable as expecting seed eaten by a mouse to germinate.
That to which contrary determinations are attributed is diverse, as heat and cold; but this thing is determined by contrary attributions. Such is the argumentation applied to the cloud (to prove that it has not a permanent but a fluxional existence). Nor is the middle term disallowable, for possession and privation of power and impotence are allowed in regard to the permanent (which you assert) at different times. The concomitance and non-concomitance already described (viz., That which can at any time do anything does not fail to do that at that time, and What at any time does not do anything, that at that time is unable to do it) are affirmed (by us) to prove the existence of such power. The negative rule is: What at any time is unable to produce anything, that at that time does not produce it, as a piece of stone, for example, does not produce a germ; and this entity (the seed, or whatever it may be), while exerting a present practical efficiency, is incapable of past and future practical efficiencies. The contradiction violating this rule is: What at any time does anything, that at that time is able to do that thing, as a complement of causes is able to produce its effect; and this (permanent) entity exerts at time past and time future the practical efficiencies proper to those times.
(To recapitulate.) Existence is restricted to the momentary; there being observed in regard to existence a negative rule, that in regard to permanent succession and simultaneity being excluded, existence which contains succession and simultaneity is not cognisable; and there being observed in regard to existence a positive rule, in virtue of a concomitance observed (viz., that the existent is accompanied or "pervaded" by the momentary), and in virtue of a non-concomitance observed (viz., that the non-momentary is accompanied or "pervaded" by the non-existent). Therefore it has been said by Jñána-śrí—
"What is is momentary, as a cloud, and as these existent things;
"The power of existence is relative to practical efficiency, and belongs to the ideal; but this power exists not as eternal in things eternal (ether, &c.);
"Nor is there only one form, otherwise one thing could do the work of another;
"For two reasons, therefore (viz., succession and simultaneity), a momentary flux is congruous and remains true in regard to that which we have to prove."
Nor is it to be held, in acceptance of the hypothesis of the Vaiśeshikas and Naiyáyikas, that existence is a participation in the universal form existence; for were this the case, universality, particularity, and co-inhesion (which do not participate in the universal) could have no existence.
Nor is the ascription of existence to universality, particularity, and co-inhesion dependent on any sui generis existence of their own; for such an hypothesis is operose, requiring too many sui generis existences. Moreover, the existence of any universal is disproved by a dilemma regarding the presence or non-presence (of the one in the many); and there is not presented to us any one form running through all the diverse momentary things, mustard-seeds, mountains, and so forth, like the string running through the gems strung upon it. Moreover (we would ask), is the universal omnipresent or present everywhere in its subjicible subjects? If it is everywhere, all things in the universe will be confounded together (chaos will be eternal), and you will be involved in a tenet you reject, since Praśasta-páda has said, "Present in all its subjects." Again (if the universal is present only in its proper subjects), does the universal (the nature of a jar) residing in an already existing jar, on being attached to another jar now in making, come from the one to attach itself to the other, or not come from it? On the first alternative (if it comes), the universal must be a substance (for substances alone underlie qualities and motions); whereas, if it does not come, it cannot attach itself to the new jar. Again (we ask), when the jar ceases to exist, does the universal outlast it, or cease to exist, or go to another place? On the first supposition it will exist without a subject to inhere in; on the second, it will be improper to call it eternal (as you do); on the third, it will follow that it is a substance (or base of qualities and motions). Destroyed as it is by the malign influence of these and the like objections, the universal is unauthenticated.