Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s5.1

c15.s5.1

The Sautrāntika doctrine of momentariness received no substantial development in the school, but was energetically defended by Ratnakīrti (A. D. 950)² from the attacks made upon it by the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school which declined to accept the denial of substance and true causation which it involved. The production of effects, he maintains, can be explained on the doctrine of momentariness and causal efficiency as the characteristics of existence, and not otherwise. Take any existent object, such as a jug at present perceived; it exists in the production of the effect of my perception of it; it is manifestly absurd to say that this effect is identical with the past or future, and it is equally absurd to hold that in the past and future it produces no effect; if it has any capacity to be effective, it must manifest it always, or there is no reason why it should do so now. What now exists, therefore, is essentially momentary; the jug which now affects my senses is not the same as the jug which formerly existed, for they differ essentially in capacity, and capacity is the essence of existence.