The doctrine that the effect is non-existent previously to its actual origination, moreover, leads to the conclusion that the activity of the causal agent has no object; for what does not exist cannot possibly be an object; not any more than the ether can be cleft by swords and other weapons for striking or cutting.  The object can certainly not be the inherent cause; for that would lead to the erroneous conclusion that from the activity of the causal agent, which has for its object the inherent cause, there results something else (viz. the effect).  And if (in order to preclude this erroneous conclusion) the opponent should say that the effect is (not something different from the cause, but) a certain relative power (ati/s/aya) of the inherent cause; he thereby would simply concede our doctrine, according to which the effect exists in the cause already.

We maintain, therefore, as our final conclusion, that milk and other substances are called effects when they are in the state of curds and so on, and that it is impossible, even within hundreds of years, ever to bring about an effect which is different from its cause.  The fundamental cause of all appears in the form of this and that effect, up to the last effect of all, just as an actor appears in various robes and costumes, and thereby becomes the basis for all the current notions and terms concerning the phenomenal world.

The conclusion here established, on the ground of reasoning, viz. that the effect exists already before its origination, and is non-different from its cause, results also from a different scriptural passage.  As under the preceding Sutra a Vedic passage was instanced which speaks of the non-existing, the different passage referred to in the present Sutra is the one (Ch.  Up.  VI, 2, 1) which refers to that which is.  That passage begins, ’Being only was this in the beginning, one without a second,’ refers, thereupon, to the doctrine of the Non-existent being the cause of the world (’Others say, Non-being was this in the beginning’), raises an objection against that doctrine (’How could that which is be born of that which is not?’), and, finally, reaffirms the view first set forth, ‘Only Being was this in the beginning.’  The circumstance that in this passage the effect, which is denoted by the word ‘this,’ is by Scripture, with reference to the time previous to its origination, coordinated with the cause denoted by the term ‘Being,’ proves that the effect exists in—­and is non-different from—­the cause.  If it were before its origination non-existing and after it inhered in its cause by samavaya, it would be something different from the cause, and that would virtually imply an abandonment of the promise made in the passage, ‘That instruction by which we hear what is not heard,’ &c. (VI, 1, 3).  The latter assertion is ratified, on the other hand, through the comprehension that the effect exists in—­and is not different from-the cause.