असदकरणादुपादानग्रहणात् सर्वसंभवाभावात्। शक्तस्य शक्यकरणात् कारणभावाच्च सत्कार्यम् ॥९॥
Non-existent reality (asat) has no instrument to cause; all possibilities of grasping the supporting material being deficient. Existent reality (sat) comes into being, the competent having the competent instrumental cause, and that cause expressing.
Here Iswara Krishna introduces the unique
'satkārya vāda' of Sankhya, the doctrine that the potentiality of the effect exists in the material cause even before it is produced. This view is based on the following grounds:
- if the effect were non-existent in the material cause, then no amount of effort on the part of any agent could bring it into existence. Can any man turn sugar into salt?
- There is an invariable relation between a material cause and its effect. A material cause can produce only that effect with which it is causally related.
- We see that only certain effects can be produced from certain causes. Curd can be got only out of milk and a cloth only out of threads.
- The fact that only a potent cause can produce a desired effect goes to show that the effect must be potentially contained in the cause.
The doctrine is also called 'parināma-vāda' . When an effect is produced, there is a real transformation ('parināma') of the cause into the effect. E.g., the production of a pot from clay, or a curd from milk.
