Jain Journal 2005 07

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

Page 20

JAIN VIEWS ON SVABHĀVA : A SURVEY
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya
The doctrine of svabhāva is as old as the Svetasvatara Upanisad (Sv. Up.), but it seems to have gone out of vogue quite early, or got assimilated to some later doctrine.' In course of time svabhava came to suggest two contrary points of view: one suggesting a regulated universe, the other, an unregulated one. Although the doctrine was extinct for a pretty long time, almost all philosophical schools of India cross swords against svabhāvavāda, presumably to combat both accidentalism and inactivism.
The canonical texts of the Jains, to the best of my knowledge, do not refer to the doctrine of svabhāva by name, nor is there any hint at such a doctrine in the SKS and AS. But Sīlānka (ninth century) mentions the doctrine in his commentary on these two texts. Some other Jain writers, too, occasionally take note of svabhāva in various works.
Unfortunately the Jain philosophical tradition does not offer any uniform view of svabhava. As in the case of other Brahminical and Buddhist writers, the Jains, too, present two diametrically opposite concepts of svabhāva, viz. causality and accidentalism. Some of them also associate svabhāvavāda with materialism, variously called bhūtavāda and tajjīvataccharīravāda; some others remain rather noncommittal. More interestingly, at least, two Jain authors, instead of rejecting svabhāvavāda, propose to proffer a syncretic view, incorporating svabhāva as one of the factors constituting the 'first cause'. Thus, the wheel takes a full turn: from the monistic (ekantavādin) position of the Sv. Up. to the pluralistic (anekāntavādin) acceptance of all doctrines that were projected as the one and only jagatkarana (the cause of the world).
1. See R. Bhattacharya 2002 for a collection of verses relating to svabhāvavāda. See also Bhattacharya 1999.
2. ASV, p. 12. 9-11; SKSVr, p.14.22.