The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c4.s1.34

c4.s1.34

The Sáṅkhya view of causation follows at once as a corollary from this doctrine of the conservation and transformation of Energy. As the total Energy remains the same while the world is constantly evolving, cause and effect are only more or less evolved forms of the same ultimate Energy. The sum of effects exists in the sum of causes in a potential (or unevolved) form. The grouping or collocation alone changes, and this brings on the manifestation of the latent powers of the Guṇas, but without creation of anything new. What is called the (material) cause or sum of material causes is only the power which is efficient in the production, or rather the vehicle, of the power. This power is the unmanifested (or potential) form of the Energy set free (उद्भूतवृत्ति) in the effect. But the concomitant conditions are necessary to call forth the so-called material cause into activity. When the favourable combination or co-operation of concomitants is wanting, there is no manifestation of the effect. The question is—what is the aid which the concomitant conditions render to the determination (and production) of the effect existing in potency in its material cause? First there is the merely mechanical view as illustrated by some commonplace examples, *e.g.*, the manifestation of the figure of the statue in the marble block by the causal efficiency of the sculptor’s art, or of the oil in the sesamum-seed by pressing, or of the grain of rice out of the paddy by the process of husking. In these cases the manifestation of an effect is only its passage from potentiality to actuality, a stadium in the process of evolution from possible (future) existence to actual (present) existence; and the concomitant condition (सहकारिशक्ति) or efficient cause (निमित्तकारण), the sculptor’s chiselling, the pressing, the husking, is a sort of mechanical or instrumental help to this passage or transition. कार्य्यशक्तिमत्त्वमेव उपादानकारणत्वम् । सा शक्तिः कार्य्यस्य अनागतावस्था एव । स एव विशेषः (उत्पत्तेः प्राक् कारणे विशेषः) अस्माभिः कार्य्यस्य अनागतावस्था इत्युच्यते । (विज्ञानभिक्षु-प्रवचनभाष्य, Sutra 115, Chap. I.) अभिव्यक्तिः वर्त्तमानावस्था । कारणव्यापारोऽपि कार्य्यस्य वर्त्तमानलक्षणपरिणाममेव जनयति । यथा शिलामध्यस्थप्रतिमायाः लैङ्गिकव्यापारेण अभिव्यक्तिमात्रं तिलस्यतैलस्य च निष्पीड़नेन धान्यस्यतण्डुलस्य च अवघातेन । (विज्ञानभिक्षु-प्रवचनभाष्य, Sutra 129, Chap. I.)