The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)
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some other (concomitant) conditions. This also won’t do! Because this con¬ comitant condition, concomitant with something which is not yet a condition, can be considered as a condition only if the other fact is (really) a condition.
We are in this case faced by the same difficulty as before. Therefore this explanation cannot be accepted.
An organ of vision and (an object) are here assumed to represent the 82. 4 causes producing (visual) sensation. But are they the causes of an existing sensation or are they the causes of a sensation not yet existing? It is anyhow an impossibility. (Nagarjuna) says,
VI. Neither non-Ens, nor Eus
Can have a cause.
Why?
If non-Ens, whose the cause?
If Ens, whatfor the cause?
Non-Ens, i.e., a non-existing thing, how could it have a cause? (Its S 2 . 9 cause is perhaps) so called in anticipation? (It will produce the result at some future occasion). No!
Referring to a future fact
We give a name anticipating,
But never will this future come
Without a force that (latently) is present. 1
The incongruities 2 (resulting from assuming latent forces) have been indicated above. 3
But if a thing is really existent, if it is present, if it has taken shape, it. is absolutely useless to imagine some causes producing it.
XLV. The cause-condition
After having represented that conditions 4 in general are not really causes, 33. i since they have no capacity to produce effects, (Nagarjuna) now proceeds (to
1 M. av., VI. 58. Lit. aThcre is for it no futurity without a force ».
2 dosa. 3 Cp. above, p. 167 ff.
4 It would have been strictly correct to translate pratyaya « condition» or «coordinate» and «hetu-pratyaya» «cause-condition» or simply ffcause». But adhipati-pratyaya is even more of a cause than hetu-pratyaya which, therefore, is sometimes called sohakari-pratyaya (cp. Sarvadars. p.39.Poona 1924). Only the alambana and samanantara-pratynyas can be distinguished as « conditions ». It is therefore impossible always to distinguish between these two terms. Yasornitra accordingly says, ad Ab. Kosa, II. 50, hetundm capiatyaydndm cako viSesali? nn knsc.it.
consider their varieties separately and) to show that none of them singly is (really) a cause.
83. 3. The following objection is raised (by the Hlnayanist). If you are right (he says), there can be no conditions at all. But (the notion of) a condition is very well established, since we have a definition of its essence. The definition of the cause-condition 1 which is here accepted, is the following one. A cause is what «turns out». If something be altogether a non-Ens, the definition of its essence) could never be given, it would be as though (some one were to teach us about the essence of the non-existing) son of a barren woman.
83. ?>. We answer. The producing condition e., the cause), would exist if its essence were something real. (But this is not the case), since,
8?,. 7 . VII. Neither an Ens, nor a non-Ens,
Nor any Ens-non-Ens,
No element is really «turned out».
How can we then assume
The possibility of a producing cause?
83. 9. Producing means creative. 2 If an element which can be produced would really be produced, then a creative cause would produce it. But it is not being (really) produced, since there is altogether no such thing that needs to be produced, whether Ens or non-Ens or (somerhing including both) Ens and non-Ens.
83. to. Indeed Ens is not produced because it exists. Neither is non-Ens, since it does not exist. Nor Ens-non-Ens, since such mutually contra¬ dicting (characteristics) cannot exist in one thing, and because, if they did, they