The verse and its meaning · Tattva · Tattva — Tarka-sangraha — Logic in One Sitting

Threads, Joining, Loom

Tarka Sangraha, Guna 26

कारणं त्रिविधम् - समाय्यसमवायिनिमित्तभेदात् ॥ यत् समवेतं कार्यम् उत्पद्यते तत् समवायिकारणम् । यथा तन्तवः पटस्य, पटश्च स्वगतरूपादेः ॥ कार्येण कारणेन वा सह एकस्मिन्नर्थे समवेतत्वे सति यत्कारणं तदसमवायिकारणम् । यथा तन्तुसंयोगः पटस्य, तन्तुरूपं पटरूपस्य ॥ तदुभयभिन्नं कारणं निमित्तकारणम् । यथा तुरीवेमादिकं पटस्य ॥

Meaning · English

Cause is of three kinds: the inherent cause, the non-inherent cause, and the instrumental cause. That in which an effect arises and rests is its inherent cause: threads for cloth, and cloth for its own colour and the like. A cause that rests in the same thing as the effect, or as the effect's cause, is the non-inherent cause: the joining of threads for cloth, the colour of threads for the colour of cloth. What is different from both is the instrumental cause: the loom and the like for cloth.

The question: when we say something 'causes' cloth, what exactly do we mean? Annambhatta says Nyaya separates three roles. First, the samavayi cause, the thing the effect is made in and made of. Threads are this for cloth. Cloth is this for its own colour, since colour lives in the cloth. Second, the asamavayi cause, a cause that sits in that same material and helps shape the result. The joining of threads makes the thing a cloth rather than a heap. The colour of the threads gives rise to the colour of the cloth. The Tarka-dipika explains that these rest in the same thread as the effect, or as its cause, which is why they count here. Third, the nimitta cause: everything else that helps but is neither material nor sitting in it, such as the loom, shuttle and weaver. So three questions are separated: what is it made of, what arrangement in that matter brings it about, and what else was needed.

Think of a bowl of clay on a potter's wheel. The clay is the material the pot is made of. The shape pressed into that clay by the hands is the arrangement that makes it a pot rather than a lump. The wheel, the potter and the water are helpers outside the clay. Those are the three causes: material, arrangement within it, and outside helpers.

Aristotle's four causes are the nearest Western comparison: material, formal, efficient and final. Nyaya's material cause matches his material cause, and the loom and weaver resemble his efficient cause. The middle category, a cause that sits in the same material, has no neat match, though it resembles how we say a structure's arrangement explains a property. Modern physics and science largely drop this fine sorting and speak of conditions, mechanisms and interactions. Philosophers of causation, from Hume to the counterfactual and interventionist accounts, ask what makes something a cause, not what kind it is. The Nyaya scheme holds up as a practical way to separate matter, organisation and tools. It is less suited to things like quantum fields or causes with no obvious material.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Defining a Cause · Tarka Sangraha, Guna 24
• Next: Perception in Two Stages · Tarka Sangraha, Pratyaksha 2
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