Ratnakîrtti (950 A.D.) sought to prove the momentariness of all existence (sattva), first, by the concomitance discovered by the method of agreement in presence (anvayavyâpti), and then by the method of difference by proving that the production of effects could not be justified on the assumption of things being permanent and hence accepting the doctrine of momentariness as the only alternative. Existence is defined as the capacity of producing anything (arthakriyâkâritva). The form of the first type of argument by anvayavyâpti may be given thus: "Whatever exists is momentary, by virtue of its existence, as for example the jug; all things about the momentariness of which we are discussing are existents and are therefore momentary." It cannot be said that the jug which has been chosen as an example of an existent is not momentary; for the jug is producing certain effects at the present moment; and it cannot be held that these are all identical in the past and the future or that it is producing no effect at all in the past and future, for the first is impossible, for those which are done now could not be done again in the future; the second is impossible, for if it has any capacity to
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[Footnote: 1: See introduction to the translation of Kathâvatthu (Points of Controversy) by Mrs Rhys Davids.]
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produce effects it must not cease doing so, as in that case one might as well expect that there should not be any effect even at the present moment. Whatever has the capacity of producing anything at any time must of necessity do it. So if it does produce at one moment and does not produce at another, this contradiction will prove the supposition that the things were different at the different moments. If it is held that the nature of production varies at different moments, then also the thing at those two moments must be different, for a thing could not have in it two contradictory capacities.
Since the jug does not produce at the present moment the work of the past and the future moments, it cannot evidently do so, and hence is not identical with the jug in the past and in the future, for the fact that the jug has the capacity and has not the capacity as well, proves that it is not the same jug at the two moments (s'aktâs'aktasvabhavatayâ pratik@sa@nam bheda@h). The capacity of producing effects (arthakriyâs'akti), which is but the other name of existence, is universally concomitant with momentariness (k@sa@nikatvavyâpta).
The Nyâya school of philosophy objects to this view and says that the capacity of anything cannot be known until the effect produced is known, and if capacity to produce effects be regarded as existence or being, then the being or existence of the effect cannot be known, until that has produced another effect and that another ad infinitum. Since there can be no being that has not capacity of producing effects, and as this capacity can demonstrate itself only in an infinite chain, it will be impossible to know any being or to affirm the capacity of producing effects as the definition of existence. Moreover if all things were momentary there would be no permanent perceiver to observe the change, and there being nothing fixed there could hardly be any means even of taking to any kind of inference. To this Ratnakirtti replies that capacity (saâmarthya) cannot be denied, for it is demonstrated even in making the denial. The observation of any concomitance in agreement in presence, or agreement in absence, does not require any permanent observer, for under certain conditions of agreement there is the knowledge of the concomitance of agreement in presence, and in other conditions there is the knowledge of the concomitance in absence. This knowledge of concomitance at the succeeding moment holds within
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itself the experience of the conditions of the preceding moment, and this alone is what we find and not any permanent observer.
The Buddhist definition of being or existence (sattva) is indeed capacity, and we arrived at this when it was observed that in all proved cases capacity was all that could be defined of being;—seed was but the capacity of producing shoots, and even if this capacity should require further capacity to produce effects, the fact which has been perceived still remains, viz. that the existence of seeds is nothing but the capacity of producing the shoots and thus there is no vicious infinite [Footnote ref l]. Though things are momentary, yet we could have concomitance between things only so long as their apparent forms are not different (atadrûpaparâv@rttayoreva sâdhyasâdhanayo@h pratyak@se@na vyâptigraha@nât). The vyâpti or concomitance of any two things (e.g. the fire and the smoke) is based on extreme similarity and not on identity.