Jain Journal 2004 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 27

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JAIN JOURNAL : VOL-XXXVIII, NO. 3 JAN. 2004
in Buddhist Sanskrit literature, right from Ašvaghoşa's BC (Buddhacarita) (first century CE).- In the Nyāya tradition, too, the pet example of the sharpness of the thorn used by the svabhāvādin-s is cited to suggest nirnimittatā (the absence of any efficient cause), or even ahetu (absence of any cause, efficient or material) whatsoever.24
Did the Cārvāka-s adhere to this view? Somadevasūri suggests just the opposite. A Cārvāka minister in the Yasastilaka-campū upholds human endeavour over fate.25
In Sāyaṇa-Mādhava (fourteenth century)’s representation of the Cārvākas, too, the Lokāyatika positively refuses to accept the concept of a lawless world. He recognises svabhāva as the cause behind all phenomena:
nanvadrstāniştau jagad-vaicitryam ākasmikam syāditi cet na tad bhadraṁ, svabhāvādeva tadupapatteủ. But an opponent [of the Cārvāka] will say, if you do not thus allow adrșța, the various phenomena of the world become destitute of any cause. But we (sc. the Cārvākas) cannot accept this objection as valid, since phenomena can all be produced spontaneously from the inherent nature of things.26
Thus, in both the domains, cosmogony as well as attainment in human life, the Cārvāka is represented as non-accidentalist and activist -quite different from the elementalist mentioned in the Mbh.
The existence of an elementalist-cum-inactivist/accidentalist school prior to the Cārvāka may also account for the identification of the Cārvāka and svabhāvavāda by quite a number of Vedāntins, Naiyāyikas and others.27 Such an identification may be traced back to the anonymous commentary on the Samkhyakārikā, v.27 (available
na Chinese translation by Paramartha) in the sixth century and more explicitly in Utpalabhatta's (tenth century) commentary on Br.S 1.7.28 Other writers, such as Haribhadra and Sāntarakṣita, however, treat the Cārvāka and svabhāvavāda as two independent doctrines, having no connection with each other.29
The confusion of terms, e.g., svabhāva as distinct from yadrcchā (as in the Sv. Up. 1.2 and as lucidly explained by Amalānanda in the thirteenth century)3° and svabhāva as a synonym for yadycchā (as in