One may ask, ‘If things are neither produced from self, other, both, nor causelessly, how are they then produced?’
To explain: If things had any sort of inherent existence, no other type of arising could be conceived of, and one would undoubtedly have to observe that they arose either from self, other, both, or causelessly. Some might propose that things are produced from a creator god or the like, but in those cases too, such things as a creator god would be a self, an other, or both; so those propounding such things as a god to be the cause, will not therefore avoid the problems already presented. Hence, no fifth cause of production can be imagined. To express how, in the absence of any other alternative, and since production by any of these four conceivable options has been refuted, there is no inherent production of things, it was said:
Because things don’t arise from self, other or both,
Nor causelessly, they’re nothing in and of themselves.
One might then ask, ‘If things are indeed without inherent arising, how do we then apprehend the unarisen, such as the colour blue?’
To explain: Since there is no way that a true nature of blueness and so forth could be objectified, the nature of things such as blue is not apprehended.
‘If that is the case, what are these things which keep appearing as actual objects to our perception?’
To explain: the mistaken is not the actual nature – true identities are only perceived by the ignorant and not by those free from ignorance. To express this:
The clouds of dense confusion lie across the world,
And therefore objects are perceived mistakenly. (6.104)
By clouds amassing rain-clouds are meant. Since thick ignorance, similar to a layer of clouds, blocks the perception of the nature of blueness and so forth, immature beings cannot perceive the true nature of blue. They make the mistake of thinking that it has essential nature, and with this belief the immature perceive it to be real.
Title
Chapter 1: Pramuditā
