Talk:Nyaya: Cause of Creation

By Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swami

Causes or kāraṇas are divided into two categories: nimitta and upādāna. You need earth or clay as a material to make a pot. So earth is the upādāna for the pot. But how does it become a pot? Does it become a pot by itself? It has to be shaped by a potter. So the potter is the cause — he is the nimitta. (The nimitta we spoke about in jyotiṣa is different.)

Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika believe that Īśvara created the universe with the ultimate particles called aṇus. Here Īśvara is the nimitta-kāraṇa and the aṇus are the upādāna-kāraṇa. To shape the clay into a pot a potter is needed. Without him there is no earthen pot, or in other words, the pot without the potter is non-existent. So when he shapes it out of clay he is the cause and the pot the effect. This is called ārambha-vāda or asatkāryavāda. Sat means that which exists (the real) and asat that which does not. There is no pot in mere clay. The non-existent pot is produced from the clay. It is in similar fashion that Īśvara created the universe with the aṇus — what he created did not exist in the particles. This is the doctrine of Nyāya.

Adherents of Sāṅkhya, as we know, do not believe in an Īśvara. According to them Prakṛti itself exfoliated into the universe. Such a belief is not to be mistaken for the contemporary atheistic view. I say so because Sāṅkhya also postulates a Puruṣa who is jñāna, similar to the Nirguṇa Brahman. According to it the inert Prakṛti can function in such an orderly fashion only in the presence of Puruṣa. The presence of Puruṣa is the cause but he is not directly involved in creation. Crops grow on their own in the sunshine. Water dries up, clothes become dry and it is all because of the sun. Does the sun worry about which crop is to be grown or which pond is to be dried up? Your hand becomes numb when you hold a lump of ice in it. Is it right to reason that it is the intention of ice to benumb your hand? Similar is the case with Puruṣa — for he is not attached to creation. But with the power received from him, Prakṛti creates the world out of itself. There is no Īśvara as a nimitta-kāraṇa. According to Sāṅkhya, Prakṛti has transformed itself as the created world. This is called pariṇāma-vāda.

While asatkāryavāda is the principle on which the nāyāyikas base their view of creation, supporters of Sāṅkhya base their theory on sat-kāryavāda. Adherents of the former believe that the clay is the upādāna (material cause) for the making of the non-existent pot while the potter is the nimitta or efficient cause. The sat-kāryavādins belonging to Sāṅkhya argue thus: "The pot was there in the clay in the beginning itself. The oilmonger presses the sesame seeds to extract the oil that is already present in them. Similarly, the pot concealed in the clay emerged as a result of the work of the potter. It is only by using the clay that you can make the pot. You cannot make a pot with sesame seeds nor do you get oil by pressing the clay. The pots are all aṇus of the clay; they came into existence by the aṇus being shaped."

Our Ācārya says: "There is neither ārambha-vāda nor pariṇāma-vāda here. It is the Brahman, with its power of Māyā, that appears in the disguise of creation. For the potter who is the Paramātman there is no other entity other than himself called clay. So the ārambha-vāda is not right. To say that Paramātman transformed himself into the cosmos is like saying that the milk turns into curd. The curd is not the same as the milk. Would it not be wrong to state that the Paramātman became non-existent after becoming the cosmos? So the pariṇāma-vāda is also not valid. On the one hand, the Paramātman remains pure jñāna, as nothing but awareness, and, on the other, he shows himself through the power of his Māyā as all this universe with its living beings and its inert objects. It is all the appearance of the same Reality, the Reality in various disguises. If a man dons a disguise he does not become another man. Similar is the case with all these disguises, all this jugglery of the universe. With all the apparent diversity, the one Reality remains unchanged." This argument is known as vivarta-vāda.

There is vivarta in the phenomenon of a rope appearing to be a snake. The upādāna-kāraṇa (material cause) that is the rope does not change into a snake by nimitta-kāraṇa (efficient cause). So the ārambha-vāda does not apply here. The rope does not transform itself into a snake; but on account of our nescience (avidyā) it seems to us to be a snake. Similarly, on account of our ājñāna or avidyā the Brahman too seems to us as this world and such a vast plurality of entities.

Nyāya lays the steps by which we may go further to realise the truth on which our Ācārya has shed light.

Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika teach us how we may become aware of padārthas (categories) through reasoning and become detached from them to realise apavarga in which there is neither sorrow nor joy. But they do not take us to a higher realm. Dualism also has its limitations thus. To grasp the One Reality that is non-dual and realise inwardly that we too are that Reality is to experience absolute liberation.

It must be said as one of the distinctive features of Nyāya that it inspires us to go in quest of apavarga by creating discontent in our worldly existence. Another of its distinguishing features is that it employs all its resources of reasoning to contend against the doctrines of the Buddhists, the Sāṅkhyas and Cārvākas to establish the principle of Īśvara as Kartā (Creator).