0287 Verse 358

Original

तथाहि नाशको हेतुर्न भावाव्यतिरेकिणः ।
नाशस्य कारको युक्तः स्वहेतोर्भावजन्मतः ॥ ३५८ ॥

tathāhi nāśako heturna bhāvāvyatirekiṇaḥ |
nāśasya kārako yuktaḥ svahetorbhāvajanmataḥ || 358 ||

For instance, the ‘destructive cause’ cannot be rightly regarded as the bringer about op a ‘destruction’ which is not-different prom the thing itself; as the positive thing is produced from its own cause.—(358)

Kamalaśīla

When the destruction is brought about—is it an entity or a non-entity?—if it is an entity, then it must be brought about by the ‘Cause of Destruction’:—now, would the destruction, as an entity, be brought about as something nob-different from the thing that was the ‘cause of the destruction’? or as something different from that thing? In regard to any existing entity, there can be only these two alternatives; and only one of these two can be right; both cannot be right; nor can both be wrong; as the denial of one character of a thing must always imply the affirmation of the contrary of that character, and the affirmation of the former must imply the denial of the latter; and one and the same character cannot be both denied and affirmed, as has been explained above.

Of the two alternatives shown above, it cannot be right to hold that ‘the Destruction, as an entity, is brought about as something not-different from the cause of that destruction’; because that which is of the nature of a positive thing is always produced—bom—from its own cause; as that also, like the thing itself, is produced out of what is not-different from it; and what has been already brought about cannot have another Cause; as if it did have one, then there would be no end to the series of such causes.—(358)