Jain Journal 2005 07

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

Page 24

RAMKRISHNABHATTACHARYA:JAIN VIEWS ON SVABHĀVA
Again, O Gautama : if you think svabhāvam (to be the kartā of sarira etc.), from the sentences of the Vedas such as “Vijñāna ghana” etc. a number of difficulties will arise. But (ca) the real interpretation of those sentences is this.
The reference is obviously to Yājñavalkaya's words to Maitreyī in Br. Up. 2.4.12 (also 4.5.13). Both Jayantabhatta and Sāyaṇamadhava quote and refer to this passage in their exposition of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata view.'' Jayantabhatta in his subsequent refutation explained the passage merely as representing the exponent's view (pūrvapakşavacana)."
To sum up then : because of their pluralistic approach, the Jain philosophers were disinclined to reject any of the jagatkāraņa (first cause)-s proposed by others but would oppose every doctrine other than karman, if taken alone, as the sole claimant, for each of them would prove to be inadequate. However, it seems that even the earliest Jain philosophers had no specific ideas about the basic doctrine of svabhāva. If we are to go by Haribhadra, Sīlānka and the like, svabhāva would mean strict causality, whereas Jinabhadragani and Maladhärī Hemacandra take svabhāva to mean just the opposite. Although it is not possible at the present stage of our knowledge to determine the true nature of the doctrine of svabhāva from the Jain sources, it is worth nothing that the pluralistic approach, peculiar to the Jains, is reflected in their deliberations on svabhāva. It is intringuing that the Sv. Up. rejects this syncretic view outright (samyoga eșām na ... 1. 2e). Did the author of the Sv. Up. have the Jains in mind, or some other sect or school advocating a similar syncretic view?
10. NM, ch. 3, pp. 387-88. The passage from the Br. Up. runs as follows: "The one
of pure knowledge (vijnanaghana), appearing out of these forins of matter, gets dissolved again only into them; there no awareness (samjñā) after death" (4.5.13). I have quoted from M.K. Gangopadhyay's trans. in C/L, p. 157. Other translators of Br. Up., following Sankara's commentary, mostly offer a garbled version, presumably to dilute the materialist content of the passage. See also C/L, p. 114 where Gangopadhyay writes .consciousness' for vijñānaghana.
For SDS see the Joshi edition p.4. 11. NM, ch.3, p.388.
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