The Pre-Existent Effect (Satkāryavāda)
Is the pot already hidden in the clay? Whether the effect pre-exists its cause splits the schools.
Does making something bring a wholly new thing into being, or only unfold what was already latent in its cause? Sāṃkhya and Vedānta answer the latter: the effect pre-exists in the cause, as the pot is already implicit in the clay and the oil already in the seed; 'production' is just its becoming manifest. Their opponents, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika realists, hold the opposite — that the effect is a genuinely new arising not present beforehand. This dry-sounding dispute is foundational: it underlies how each school explains causation, the world's origin, and the relation of the world to its ultimate ground.
Key passages(11)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
'But how could it be thus, my dear?' the father continued. 'How could that which is, be born of that which is not? No, my dear, only that which is, was in the beginning, one only, without a second.
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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
Verily, of created things here earth is the essence; of earth, water; of water, plants; of plants, flowers; of flowers, fruits; of fruits, man (purusa); of man, semen.
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He who knows at the same time both the cause and the destruction (the perishable body), overcomes death by destruction (the perishable body), and obtains immortality through (knowledge of) the true ca
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Âditya (the sun) is Brahman, this is the doctrine, and this is the fuller account of it:— In the beginning this was non-existent. It became existent, it grew. It turned into an egg . The egg lay for t
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