Is the Fruit Already in the Cause?
This page carries Ru-Yi's translation of the first half of Gate Two, the longest of the twelve. Its target is one of the oldest positions in Indian philosophy: that an effect already exists, whole, inside its cause — that the pot is in the clay and the butter in the curd before anyone touches them, waiting only to be brought out. Nāgārjuna takes it apart with a dozen arguments, then meets the defense that would rescue it — the pot is there, merely untransformed and so unseen — with a careful list of the eight ways a genuinely real thing can escape notice, and shows that a pot in clay fits none of them.
Where This Gate Stands
Gate One showed that whatever arises from a gathering of conditions has no nature of its own. Gate Two presses the same point from the other side, asking not what a thing is but how it could ever have come to be. The verse gives three exhaustive options — the fruit already exists in its cause, it does not, or it both does and does not — and rejects all three. This page covers the first, which takes nearly two-thirds of the gate; Part Three covers the remaining two, and moves on to Gate Three.
The position under attack was a live one. In classical Indian terms it is satkāryavāda, "the doctrine that the effect exists," held above all by the Sāṃkhya school, whose reasoning was serious rather than naive: sesame yields oil and sand does not, so something must already distinguish the sesame — and what else could that be but the oil, already present in some unmanifest form? Nāgārjuna's answer to that specific argument comes in Part Three. Here he works on the position itself.
1. The Root Verse: Three Ways, and None of Them Works
復次，諸法不生。何以故？
Furthermore, things do not arise. Why?
先有則不生， 先無亦不生，
有無亦不生， 誰當有生者？
Existing beforehand, it does not arise;
not existing beforehand, it does not arise;
both existing and not, it does not arise —
who, then, is there that arises?
若果因中先有則不應生，先無亦不應生，先有無亦不應生。
If the fruit exists beforehand in the cause, it ought not to arise. If it does not exist beforehand, it ought not to arise either. And if it both exists and does not exist beforehand, it still ought not to arise.
The verse is a tetralemma with the fourth limb left silent — existing, not existing, both, and the unstated neither, which is dispatched at the end of the gate by pointing out that it is only the first two joined at the hip. What makes the structure worth pausing over is that it is not a survey of opinions. It is a claim that these options are exhaustive: whatever anyone means by "the pot came to be," the pot was either there already, or not there, or somehow both. If arising cannot be located in any of the three, it cannot be located.
2. Seven Reasons a Pre-existing Fruit Cannot Arise
The first stretch of argument comes in a rapid series, each opening with furthermore. They converge on one difficulty from several directions: if the fruit is already there, "arising" has no work left to do, and every attempt to give it work either sets off an infinite regress or collapses the distinction between arisen and unarisen entirely.
何以故？若果因中先有而生，是則無窮。如果先未生而生者，今生已復應更生。何以故？因中常有故。從是有邊復應更生，是則無窮。
若謂生已更不生，未生而生者，是中無有生理；是故先有而生，是事不然。
Why? If the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises, there is an endless regress. For if the fruit, not having yet arisen, arises — then now, having arisen, it ought to arise once more. Why? Because it is always there in the cause. And from that existing side it ought to arise yet again — which is endless.
If you answer that what has arisen does not arise again, and only what has not yet arisen arises, then there is no coherent principle of arising left in your account at all. So that a thing exists beforehand and then arises is not so.
復次，若因中先有果，而謂未生而生、生已不生者，是亦二俱有而一生一不生，無有是處。
復次，若未生定有者，生已則應無。何以故？生、未生共相違故；生未生相違故，是二作相亦相違。
Furthermore, if the fruit exists beforehand in the cause, and you say that what has not arisen arises while what has arisen does not — then the two are equally present, yet one arises and the other does not; and there is no ground for that.
Furthermore, if what has not yet arisen definitely exists, then once it has arisen it ought not to exist. Why? Because "arisen" and "not yet arisen" contradict one another; and since they contradict one another, the marks by which the two operate contradict one another too.
復次，有與無相違，無與有相違，若生已亦有、未生時亦有者，則生、未生不應有異。何以故？若有生，生已亦有、未生亦有，如是生、未生有何差別？生、未生無差別，是事不然，是故有不生。
復次，有已先成，何用更生？如作已不應作，成已不應成，是故有法不應生。
Furthermore, existence contradicts non-existence, and non-existence contradicts existence. If the fruit exists once arisen and exists also while not yet arisen, then arisen and not-yet-arisen ought to differ in nothing. Why? If there is arising, and the thing exists once arisen and exists also unarisen, then what difference is there between the two? That arisen and unarisen differ in nothing is not so — and therefore what exists does not arise.
Furthermore, what already exists is already accomplished; what use is there in its arising again? As what has been made need not be made again, and what has been completed need not be completed again, so what exists ought not to arise.
復次若有生，因中未生時果應可見，而實不可見；如泥中瓶、蒲中席，應可見而實不可見，是故有不生。
Furthermore, if it exists and then arises, the fruit ought to be visible in the cause while it has not yet arisen — and in fact it is not visible. A pot in the clay, a mat in the rushes: these ought to be visible, and in fact they are not. Therefore what exists does not arise.
The strongest of these is the third — that if the fruit exists both before and after, nothing distinguishes the two states, and "arising" names no event. The doctrine wanted to explain production while keeping the produced thing continuous with its cause; what it gets instead is continuity without production. There is no moment at which anything happens.
The last argument is the one that actually forces the opponent to speak, and it is disarmingly simple: if the pot is in the clay, show me. Everything for the next several pages follows from the attempt to answer that.
3. "It Is There — Only Not Yet Transformed"
The opponent's reply is the natural one, and the same one the Sāṃkhya tradition actually gave: the pot is present in the clay, but in an unmanifest condition, and what we call its arising is really its transformation into visibility. Nāgārjuna's counter is to ask what makes the invisible thing a pot rather than an ox, and then to turn the transformation itself into a dilemma the opponent cannot escape.
問曰：「果雖先有，以未變故不見。」
答曰：「若瓶未生時瓶體未變故不見者，以何相知言泥中先有瓶？為以瓶相有瓶？為以牛相、馬相故有瓶耶？若泥中無瓶相者，亦無牛相、馬相，是豈不名無耶？是故汝說因中先有果而生者，是事不然。
Question: The fruit does exist beforehand; it is simply not seen, because it has not yet been transformed.
Answer: If the pot is unseen because, before it arises, the pot's own body has not yet been transformed — then by what mark do you know to say there is a pot in the clay beforehand? Is the pot there by the mark of a pot? Or is the pot there by the mark of an ox, or a horse? If there is no mark of a pot in the clay, and no mark of an ox or a horse either — is that not exactly what we mean by saying it is not there? So your claim that the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises is not so.
「復次，變法即是果者，即應因中先有變。何以故？汝法因中先有果故。若瓶等先有，變亦先有，應當可見而實不可得，是故汝言未變故不見，是事不然。若謂未變不名為果，則果畢竟不可得。何以故？是變先無，後亦應無，故瓶等果畢竟不可得。若謂變已是果者，則因中先無，如是則不定：或因中先有果，或先無果。」
Furthermore: if the transformation itself is the fruit, then the transformation ought to exist beforehand in the cause. Why? Because on your doctrine the fruit exists beforehand in the cause. And if pots and the rest exist beforehand, the transformation exists beforehand too, and ought to be visible — and in fact it is not to be got. So your saying that it is unseen because untransformed is not so. If instead you say that what is not yet transformed is not to be called the fruit, then the fruit is in the end not to be got at all. Why? Because this transformation was not there before, and so ought not to be there afterward either — and thus pots and the other fruits are in the end not to be got. But if you say that only what has been transformed is the fruit, then it was not there beforehand in the cause; and then your position is unfixed — sometimes the fruit is there beforehand in the cause, and sometimes it is not.
The first question is the sharper of the two, and it is worth restating plainly. To say "the pot is in the clay, unmanifest" is to say there is something in the clay which is pot-shaped rather than ox-shaped. But a mark is exactly what an unmanifest thing does not have. Strip away every observable feature — which is what "unmanifest" means — and nothing remains by which this hidden thing is a pot at all. The opponent must either grant the pot some detectable mark, in which case it should be found in the clay and is not, or grant it none, in which case calling it a pot is empty. "Is that not exactly what we mean by saying it is not there?" is not a rhetorical flourish. It is a definition.
The second argument then closes the escape route by making the transformation itself the subject of the same question. Either the transformation is already in the clay too — in which case it should be visible and is not — or it is not, in which case the doctrine has admitted that at least one thing comes into being that was not there before, and the universal claim is broken. The two horns are put with real precision: then your position is unfixed. Nāgārjuna's objection is not that the opponent is wrong about pots. It is that the opponent cannot state the doctrine consistently.
4. Eight Reasons a Real Thing Goes Unseen
The opponent now makes the best move available: concede that the pot is not seen, and deny that being unseen implies being absent. Real things escape notice all the time, and here is a systematic list of the ways — eight of them, with an example apiece. It is a genuinely good argument, and the passage is one of the small treasures of the treatise, a catalogue of the ordinary failures of perception set down in the fourth or fifth century.
問曰：「先有變，但不可得見。凡物自有有而不可得者，如物或有近而不可知；或有遠而不可知；或根壞故不可知；或心不住故不可知；障故不可知；同故不可知；勝故不可知；微細故不可知。
Question: The transformation is there beforehand; it simply cannot be seen. There are indeed things that exist and yet are not to be got. Some are not known because they are too near; some because they are too far; some because the faculty is damaged; some because the mind is not settled on them; some because of an obstruction; some because of sameness; some because they are overwhelmed; and some because they are too subtle.
近而不可知者，如眼中藥。遠而不可知者，如鳥飛虛空高翔遠逝。根壞故不可知者，如盲不見色、聾不聞聲、鼻塞不聞香、口爽不知味、身頑不知觸、心狂不知實。心不住故不可知者，如心在色等則不知聲。障故不可知者，如地障大水、壁障外物。同故不可知者，如黑上墨點。勝故不可知者，如有鍾鼓音，不聞捎拂聲。細微故不可知者，如微塵等不現。
Not known because too near: like medicine placed in the eye. Not known because too far: like a bird flying in the open sky, soaring high and passing out of sight. Not known because the faculty is damaged: as the blind do not see forms, the deaf do not hear sounds, a blocked nose smells no fragrance, a spoiled mouth knows no flavor, a numbed body knows no touch, and a deranged mind does not know what is real. Not known because the mind is not settled on it: as when the mind rests on a form, it does not notice a sound. Not known because of an obstruction: as earth hides a great body of water, or a wall hides what is beyond it. Not known because of sameness: like a spot of ink on something already black. Not known because of being overwhelmed: as when bells and drums are sounding, one does not hear the sound of a light brushing. Not known because of subtlety: as motes of dust and the like do not show.
如是諸法雖有，以八因緣故不可知。汝說因中變不可得、瓶等不可得者，是事不然。何以故？是事雖有，以八因緣故不可得。」
In this way, though such things exist, they are unknowable for eight reasons. So your saying that the transformation in the cause is not to be got, and that pots and the rest are not to be got, is not so. Why? Because though these things do exist, they are not got, for the eight reasons.
Before the reply comes, it is worth granting how good this is. The opponent has correctly identified that Nāgārjuna's argument from invisibility proves too much if left unqualified — plenty of real things are invisible — and has produced a taxonomy of exactly why, ranging over distance, damaged organs, attention, occlusion, contrast, masking, and scale. Every example is drawn from ordinary experience and every one is right. Medicine in the eye really is too close to see. A black dot on black really does vanish. This is not sophistry; it is careful empirical work in the service of a metaphysical thesis.
5. Why a Pot in Clay Is Not Like Any of the Eight
Nāgārjuna's reply takes the list at its word and applies the one feature every item on it shares: each of the eight is a removable condition. Move the bird nearer, cure the eye, stop the drums, and the thing appears. That is precisely what makes those cases evidence of a real but hidden object. So he walks the list, item by item, and asks the opponent to remove each condition in the case of the pot.
答曰：「變法及瓶等果，不同八因緣不可得。何以故？若變法及瓶等，果極近不可得者，小遠應可得；極遠不可得者，小近應可得；若根壞不可得者，根淨應可得；若心不住不可得者，心住應可得；若障不可得者，變法及瓶法無障應可得；若同不可得者，異時應可得；若勝不可得者，勝止應可得；若細微不可得者，而瓶等果麁應可得。
Answer: The transformation and fruits such as the pot are not unobtainable in the manner of the eight reasons. Why? If the transformation and the pot were not got because they were extremely near, they ought to be got when moved slightly farther off. If not got because extremely far, they ought to be got when brought slightly nearer. If not got because the faculty is damaged, they ought to be got when the faculty is sound. If not got because the mind is unsettled, they ought to be got when the mind is settled. If not got because of an obstruction, then where there is no obstruction the transformation and the pot ought to be got. If not got because of sameness, they ought to be got at a time when they differ. If not got because of being overwhelmed, they ought to be got once the overwhelming stops. And if not got because of subtlety — well, a fruit like a pot is coarse, so it ought to be got.
若瓶細故不可得者，生已亦應不可得。何以故？生已、未生細相一故，生已、未生俱定有故。」
問曰：「未生時細，生已轉麁，是故生已可得，未生不可得。」
And if the pot were not got because it is subtle, then it ought not to be got once arisen either. Why? Because its subtlety is one and the same whether arisen or not yet arisen — and because, on your account, it definitely exists in both states alike.
Question: While not yet arisen it is subtle; once arisen it turns coarse. That is why it is got once arisen and not got before.
答曰：「若爾者，因中則無果。何以故？因中無麁故。又、因中先無麁，若因中先有麁者，則不應言細，故不可得；今果是麁，汝言細故不可得，是麁不名為果。今果畢竟不應可得而果實可得，是故不以細故不可得。如是有法因中先有果，以八因緣故不可得，先因中有果，是事不然。
Answer: If that is so, then the fruit is not in the cause at all. Why? Because the coarse is not in the cause. And further: the coarse was not there beforehand in the cause — for if it had been, you could not say the thing is subtle and therefore not got. As matters stand, the fruit is coarse; and since you say it is not got because it is subtle, this coarse thing is not what you were calling the fruit. On your account the fruit ought in the end never to be got at all — yet the fruit really is got. So it is not on account of subtlety that it goes unobtained. Thus the claim that the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and is merely unobtainable for the eight reasons — that the fruit is there in the cause beforehand — is not so.
The reply is one of the most methodical passages in the treatise, and its principle is a good one to carry away: an explanation of why something is not observed is only worth having if it predicts the conditions under which it would be. Each of the eight does. Remove the masking noise and the brushing is heard; the claim is testable, and passing the test is what makes it evidence rather than an excuse. The pot in the clay passes none of them. There is no distance at which it comes into view, no sharpening of the eye, no removal of an obstruction.
The exchange over subtlety is the neat close. The opponent, cornered, tries the one remaining option — the pot was subtle before and turns coarse after — and thereby concedes the whole argument. Coarseness is not in the clay. So something has come to be that was not there before, which is exactly the thesis under dispute. And there is a second, quieter blow: if what emerged is coarse, and the thing supposedly hiding in the clay was subtle, then the thing that emerged is not the thing that was hiding. The doctrine's own escape hatch severs the identity it was invented to preserve.
6. A Cause That Is Only a Container Is No Cause
With the invisibility defense closed, Nāgārjuna turns to what the doctrine does to the notions of cause and fruit themselves. If the cloth is already lying in the thread, then thread stands to cloth as a vessel stands to the fruit inside it — a place where the thing sits, not a thing that makes it. And a cause that makes nothing has lost the only mark that made it a cause.
「復次，若因中先有果生者，是則因、因相壞，果、果相壞。何以故？如疊在縷，如果在器，但是住處，不名為因。何以故？縷、器非疊，果因故。若因壞，果亦壞，是故縷等非疊等因。因無故，果亦無。何以故？因因故有果成，因不成，果云何成？
Furthermore, if the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises, the cause loses the mark of a cause and the fruit loses the mark of a fruit. Why? Because it would be like cloth lying in thread, or fruit lying in a vessel: these are merely places where a thing sits, and are not called its cause. Why? Because thread and vessel, taken that way, are not the cause of cloth and fruit at all. And if the cause is undone, the fruit is undone with it — so thread and the rest are not the causes of cloth and the rest. The cause being absent, the fruit is absent too. Why? It is by depending on a cause that a fruit is established; and if the cause is not established, how should the fruit be?
「復次，若不作不名果，縷等因不能作疊等果。何以故？如縷等不以疊等住故能作疊等果，如是則無因無果。若因果俱無，則不應求因中若先有果、若先無果。
Furthermore, what is not made is not called a fruit — and thread and the other causes cannot make cloth and the other fruits. Why? Because thread does not make cloth a fruit merely by the cloth's residing in it. On this account there is neither cause nor fruit. And if cause and fruit are both absent, one ought not to be inquiring in the first place whether the fruit is or is not already in the cause.
The container image does the work here. A basket holding apples is not the cause of the apples; it is where they happen to be. The doctrine that the effect pre-exists in its cause reduces every cause to a basket — and it does so by its own logic, not by any distortion. If the cloth is genuinely already there in the thread, then weaving is a relocation, not a making.
The closing line has a bite worth noticing. Having shown that the doctrine destroys the very categories the question was framed in, Nāgārjuna points out that the opponent should therefore stop asking the question. This is characteristic of his method: he is not offering a rival theory of causation to replace the one he has broken. He is showing that the terms of the debate do not survive their own examination.
7. No Sign Shows — and What Is Made from Nothing Is Permanent
Two further arguments, one evidential and one about consequences. First: hidden things announce themselves — a fragrance means a flower, smoke means fire, a swan means water nearby. If the fruit sat in its cause, some such sign should show, and none does. Second: if neither the thing's own cause nor anything else makes it, then it is unmade — and what is unmade is permanent, which would make every conditioned thing permanent, and destroy impermanence and permanence together.
「復次，若因中有果而不可得，應有相現，如聞香知有華、聞聲知有鳥、聞笑知有人、見烟知有火、見鵠知有池。如是因中若先有果，應有相現；今果體亦不可得，相亦不可得，如是當知因中先無果。
Furthermore, if the fruit is in the cause but not to be got, there ought at least to be some sign of it showing — as one smells a fragrance and knows there is a flower, hears a sound and knows there is a bird, hears laughter and knows there is a person, sees smoke and knows there is fire, sees a swan and knows there is a pond. Just so, if the fruit were there beforehand in the cause, some sign of it ought to show. As matters stand, neither the fruit's own body is to be got nor any sign of it — and from this one should know that the fruit is not there beforehand in the cause.
「復次，若因中先有果生，則不應言因縷有疊、因蒲有席。若因不作，他亦不作。如疊非縷所作，可從蒲作耶？若縷不作，蒲亦不作，可得言無所從作耶？若無所從作，則不名為果。若果無，因亦無，如先說。是故從因中先有果生，是則不然。
Furthermore, if the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises, one ought not to say that cloth comes from thread or a mat from rushes. And if its own cause does not make it, nothing else makes it either. If cloth is not made by thread, is it then to be made from rushes? And if thread does not make it and rushes do not make it, may one say it is made from nothing at all? What is made from nothing at all is not called a fruit. And if there is no fruit, there is no cause either, as was said above. So that the fruit arises from being already in the cause is not so.
「復次，若果無所從作，則為是常，如涅槃性。若果是常，諸有為法則皆是常。何以故？一切有為法皆是果故。若一切法皆常，則無無常；若無無常，亦無有常。何以故？因常有無常、因無常有常，是故常無常二俱無者，是事不然。是故不得言因中先有果生。
Furthermore, if the fruit is made from nothing at all, then it is permanent, like the nature of nirvāṇa. And if the fruit is permanent, then all conditioned things are permanent. Why? Because every conditioned thing is a fruit. And if everything is permanent, there is no impermanence; and if there is no impermanence, there is no permanence either. Why? Because it is in dependence on the permanent that there is the impermanent, and on the impermanent that there is the permanent. So that permanence and impermanence should both be absent is not so. Therefore one cannot say the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises.
The five signs — fragrance, birdsong, laughter, smoke, a swan — are worth reading twice, because they concede something important. Nāgārjuna is not denying that we routinely and correctly infer the unseen from the seen. He is insisting on the standard such inferences meet, and pointing out that his opponent's claim meets none of it. Nothing whatever about a lump of clay differs according to whether it will become a pot.
The permanence argument is subtler and shows the reach of Madhyamaka reasoning. It does not merely say "then everything would be permanent" and stop. It presses one step further: permanence and impermanence are a mutually dependent pair, each with content only against the other. Abolish impermanence and you have not established universal permanence — you have abolished both, and are left unable to say anything at all. The same reciprocal structure will return in Gate Five with mark and marked, and in Gate Seven with existence and non-existence.
8. The Scent in the Ground, and the Lamp That Only Shows
One last rescue, and it is ingenious: the fruit is in the cause the way scent lies in dry ground, which releases it only when water is sprinkled. Nothing is added by the water; something latent is drawn out. The reply distinguishes two kinds of cause the Indian tradition already knew — a cause that produces and a cause that merely manifests — and shows that the opponent has quietly slid from one to the other.
「復次，若因中先有果生，則果更與異果作因，如疊與著為因，如席與障為因。如車與載為因，而實不與異果作因，是故不得言因中先有果生。若謂如地先有香，不以水灑，香則不發；果亦如是，若未有緣會，則不能作因。是事不然，何以故？如汝所說，可了時名果，瓶等物非果。何以故？可了是作，瓶等先有非作，是則以作為果。是故因中先有果生，是事不然。
Furthermore, if the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises, then that fruit would in turn serve as cause for some further fruit — as cloth is cause for being worn, a mat cause for screening, a cart cause for carrying. But in fact it does not so serve as cause for a further fruit. Therefore one cannot say the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises. Suppose you say: it is as with the scent already in the ground, which does not come forth unless water is sprinkled on it; and so with the fruit — until the conditions have come together, it cannot act as a cause. This is not so. Why? Because on your own account, what gets called the fruit is the thing at the moment it becomes manifest, and not the pot itself. Why? Because becoming manifest is something done, whereas the pot, existing beforehand, is not something done — and so it is the doing that you are treating as the fruit. Therefore that the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises is not so.
「復次，了因但能顯發，不能生物，如為照闇中瓶故然燈，亦能照餘臥具等物；為作瓶故和合眾緣，不能生餘臥具等物，是故當知非先因中有果生。
「復次，若因中先有果生，則不應有今作、當作差別。而汝受今作、當作，是故非先因中有果生。
Furthermore, a manifesting cause can only bring to light; it cannot produce a thing. A lamp lit in order to illuminate a pot in the dark illuminates the bedding and everything else there as well — whereas the conditions gathered in order to make a pot do not produce bedding and the rest. From this one should know that the fruit does not arise from being already in the cause.
Furthermore, if the fruit exists beforehand in the cause and then arises, there ought to be no difference between what is being made now and what is to be made later. Yet you do accept a difference between making now and making later. So the fruit does not arise from being already in the cause.
The lamp argument is the most elegant thing on this page, and its logic is easy to state. Manifesting and producing behave differently, and the difference is testable. A lamp is indiscriminate: light it to find the pot and you also light the bedding, the walls, and the floor, because manifesting merely removes an obstacle to seeing whatever is already there. A potter is not indiscriminate: gather clay, wheel, and labor to make a pot and you get a pot and nothing else. If causation were really manifestation, as the scent-in-the-ground image proposes, then a potter's work should turn up whatever else happened to be lying latent in the clay. It does not. Causes are selective in a way that revealing is not, and that selectivity is evidence that something is being made rather than uncovered.
The final argument is almost thrown away, and is worth catching. Everyone, including the opponent, distinguishes what is being made now from what will be made later — that distinction is built into how anyone talks about work in progress. But if every fruit is already complete inside its cause, there is nothing for that distinction to track. The doctrine is not merely metaphysically awkward; it cannot account for ordinary speech about tomorrow's pot.
Part Two Complete
This closes the first half of Gate Two: the doctrine that a fruit exists beforehand in its cause, dismantled from every side — that it makes arising redundant or endless, that it leaves nothing to distinguish arisen from unarisen, that the hidden pot has no mark by which it could be a pot, that it fits none of the eight ways a real thing goes unseen, that it reduces every cause to a container, and that its last defense confuses making something with shining a light on it. Part Three takes up the opposite doctrine — that the fruit is not in the cause — together with the position that it is both; and then moves on to Gate Three, where the whole classical machinery of the four conditions is put to the same test.
Continue to Part 3 — Nor Is It Absent, and the Four Conditions →