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Lord Mahāvīra and His Times
all phenomenal change.1 Man's destiny is pre-ordained, human effort could effect no change in it, and emancipation was to be obtained only through a long series of transmigrations. Pleasure and pain are not caused by the souls themselves nor by others, but by destiny. There is no such thing as exertion or labour or power or vigour or manly strength, but that all things are caused by destiny which is unalterably fixed. The Samāññphala Sutta also gives an account of Gośāla's teachings from where we get the same denial of the usefulness of effort or manly vigour.
The attainment of a certain peculiar condition, and of a certain peculiar character on the part of all things, all lives, all beings, depends in part on the class or type to which they belong. It is partly according to their position in this class or that that they possess certain special properties, that they have certain physical characteristics, that they inherit certain peculiar habits, develop certain faculties, and so on. Thus fire, for example, is hot, ice is cold, water is liquid, stone is hard, a thorn is sharp, a peacock is painted, the sandal tree possesses fragrance, the elephant's cub, if it does not find leafless and thorny creepers in the green wood, becomes thin ; the crow avoids the ripe mango, etc.?
Buddhaghosha explains Gośāla's term 'nature' as 'the. peculiar nature of each being'.3 The world originates and develops from its inherent force or immanent energy. It is also probable that he sought for an explanation of the diversity of appearances, characteristics, habits and behaviour of things in nature. He conceived Nature as a self-evolving activity. Nature has two modes of operation : by one made things come to pass and by the other they cease to be (pravịtti and niortti). More accurately, he seems to have understood by Nature the specific faculties or characteristics of a living substance other than those which it possesses in common with the race or species. 4 1. Uvā, vi-vii. 2. Buddhacharita, IX. 47, 48, 52; Silārika's Sūtra. Tikā, p. 30; Sarvodar
sanasangraha, p. 7. 3. Sumangala Vilasini, I. 161. 4. BHPIP, p. 312.
