Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 478

SVABHAVAVADA (NATURALISM): A STUDY : 17
to look upon any one out of many causes-Kāla, Svabhāva, Niyati, Karma, Puruşakāramas the only cause is wrong and to regard them all as causes ---some more important and some less important-is the right belief.
Before we take up passages refuting Svabhavavāda, it is necessary to examine the interrelation between Yadrcchāvāda and Svabhāvavāda, and Ajīvikism.
YADRCCHĀVĀDA AND SVABHÄVAVADA Yadycchāvāda is also known as Ahetu-Animitta-Akasmāt-vāda. Gautama and Vātsyāyana [Nyayasūtra (iv. 1.22) Bhāsya] give 'Kantakataiksnya' as an illustration of Animittavāda. This illustration has been highly popular with, and very often cited by Svabhāvavādins in support of their doctrine. We would not, therefore, be wrong if we drew the conclusion that Gautama and Vätsyāyana regarded these two doctrines as identical. Svetāśvatara, Siddhasena Haribhadra and many later writers mention these two doctrines separately and distinguish between them. Hiriyanna23 very well brings out the distinction between these two doctrines : "While the one maintains that the world is a chaos and ascribes whatever order is seen in it to mere chance, the other recognizes that things are as their nature makes them'. While the former denies causation altogether, the latter acknowledges its universality, but only traces all changes to the thing itself to which they belong."
SVABHAVAVĀDA: A SMALL SUB-SECT OF AJIVIKISM ?
In the course of his exposition of the doctrine of Niyati Basham writes : "... Hence it appears that the Svabhāvavādins agreed with the Niyativādins on the futility of human efforts. They were classed in the group of Akriyavadins, or those who did not believe in the utility or effectiveness of puruşakāra. It would seem that the Svabhāvavādin differed from the Niyativădin in that, while the latter views the individual as determined by forces exterior to himself, for the former he was rigidly selfdetermined by his own somatic and psychic nature. These ideas have much in common and we suggest therefore that Svabhāvavāda was a small sub-sect of Ajīvikism."21 Granting that "these ideas have much in common" we cannot persuade ourselves to accept Basham's suggestion for from all the references to Svabhavavada culled in this paper we find
23 Outlines of Indian Philosophy, pp. 103-104. 24 History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas, p. 226. GJ.V. 2