Causation as Satkâryavâda (the theory that the effect potentially exists before it is generated by the movement of the cause).
The above consideration brings us to an important aspect of the Sâ@mkhya view of causation as satkâryavâda. Sâ@mkhya holds that there can be no production of a thing previously non-existent; causation means the appearance or manifestation of a quality due to certain changes of collocations in the causes which were already held in them in a potential form. Production of effect only means an internal change of the arrangement of atoms in the cause, and this exists in it in a potential form, and just a little loosening of the barrier which was standing in the way of the happening of such a change of arrangement will produce the desired new collocation—the effect. This doctrine is called satkâryavâda, i.e. that the kârya or effect is sat or existent even before the causal operation to produce the effect was launched. The oil exists in the sesarnum, the statue in the stone, the curd in the milk, The causal operation (kârakaiyâpâra) only renders that manifest (âvirbhûta) which was formerly in an unmanifested condition (tirohita) [Footnote ref 1].
The Buddhists also believed in change, as much as Sâ@mkhya did, but with them there was no background to the change; every change was thus absolutely a new one, and when it was past, the next moment the change was lost absolutely. There were only the passing dharmas or manifestations of forms and qualities, but there was no permanent underlying dharma or substance. Sâ@mkhya also holds in the continual change of dharmas, but it also holds that these dharmas represent only the conditions of the permanent reals. The conditions and collocations of the reals change constantly, but the reals themselves are unchangeable. The effect according to the Buddhists was non-existent, it came into being for a moment and was lost. On account of this theory of causation and also on account of their doctrine of s'ûnya, they were called vainâs'ikas (nihilists) by the Vedântins. This doctrine is therefore contrasted to Sâ@mkhya doctrine as asatkâryavâda.
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[Footnote 1: Tattvakaumudî, 9.]
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The jain view holds that both these views are relatively true and that from one point of view satkâryavâda is true and from another asatkâryavâda. The Sâ@mkhya view that the cause is continually transforming itself into its effects is technically called pari@nâmavâda as against the Vedânta view called the vivarttavâda: that cause remains ever the same, and what we call effects are but illusory impositions of mere unreal appearance of name and form—mere Maya [Footnote ref. 1].
Sâ@mkhya Atheism and Yoga Theism.
Granted that the interchange of the positions of the infinite number of reals produce all the world and its transformations; whence comes this fixed order of the universe, the fixed order of cause and effect, the fixed order of the so-called barriers which prevent the transformation of any cause into any effect or the first disturbance of the equilibrium of the prak@rti? Sâ@mkhya denies the existence of Îs'vara (God) or any other exterior influence, and holds that there is an inherent tendency in these reals which guides all their movements. This tendency or teleology demands that the movements of the reals should be in such a manner that they may render some service to the souls either in the direction of enjoyment or salvation. It is by the natural course of such a tendency that prak@rti is disturbed, and the gu@nas develop on two lines—on the mental plane, citta or mind comprising the sense faculties, and on the objective plane as material objects; and it is in fulfilment of the demands of this tendency that on the one hand take place subjective experiences as the changes of the buddhi and on the other the infinite modes of the changes of objective things. It is this tendency to be of service to the puru@sas (puru@sârthatâ) that guides all the movements of the reals, restrains all disorder, renders the world a fit object of experience, and finally rouses them to turn back from the world and seek to attain liberation from the association of prak@rti and its gratuitous service, which causes us all this trouble of sa@msâra.
Yoga here asks, how the blind tendency of the non-intelligent