Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s5.5

c15.s5.5

The Buddhist argument for momentary activity is presented with special care in the *Sarvadarçanasaṃgraha*.¹ Whatever exists is momentary, because it exists; existence is admittedly practical efficiency or activity, and activity has only two possible forms, successive and non-successive, on the principle of excluded middle. These two are both inconsistent with permanency, and therefore activity and existence are momentary. If this inconsistency with permanence is called into question, it can be established by a simple dilemma; does the permament object possess at present the capacity of past and future activity? If it does, then it must produce these effects now, since that, which has capacity, like a collection of causes, cannot fail to act. If not, then it will never have the power, and the theory that it has true existence is overthrown. Nor is it any use to assume successive subsidiaries with which the permanent object accomplishes results. If these subsidiaries do not assist the thing, they are idle; if they do, are they different from the thing or not? If they are different, then it is they that bring about the result, not the non-changing object, nor can this fact be avoided by any attempt to argue that it is the permanent entity that produces with the subsidiaries. If, on the other hand, it is the case that the subsidiaries are identical with the original thing, then it is clear that the permanent thing has changed its nature, which means that it is not permanent. It is equally impossible that a permanent thing should have activity as simultaneous; we have the dilemma: does this permanent entity after producing these effects at once survive or not? If it does, then it will go on for all time producing these effects; if it does not, its permanence is *ex hypothesi* non-existent. Hence the permanent can never be active, and, as existence is activity, the permanent is never existent, and all is momentary.