Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

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BHAVYATVA AND ABHAVYATVA A JAIN DOCTRINE OF «PREDESTINATION”
Padmanabh S. Jaini
One of the most fundamental doctrines of the Jains is their division of souls (jīvas) into two unalterable categories called bhavya and abhavya: those who are capable and those who are incapable of release from the bondage of transmigration (samsāra). Adherence to such a belief of 'predestination is fraught with serious consequences and must be a liability to any religion, especially to Jainism, which is considered highly rational on account of its rejection of the theistic doctrines of a Creator and His Grace, and its espousal of the efficacy of free-will of a striving soul. Yet one looks in vain for any satisfactory discussion of this topic among the works of the great ācāryas, whether of the Digambara or of the Svetāmbara tradition, who seem to urge its acceptance solely on the authority of the Omniscient (sarvajña) Jina. An attempt will be made in this paper to summarize this doctrine and to discover a possible rationale underlying its institution.
Although the Jain agamas abound in stray references to the terms bhavya and abhavya, the most familiar scriptural source for this doctrine is the Tattvärtha-sūtra of ācārya Umāsvāti. The terms bhavyatva and abhavyatva occur here in connection with the description of the distinctive characteristics of the soul (jīva) as opposed to the non-soul (ajīva). Umāsvāti enumerates five kinds of dispositions (bhāva), four of which arise in the soul respectively from subsidence (upašama), destruction (kşaya), destructioncum-subsidence (kşayopasama), and the rise (udaya) of karmas. The fifth, called the pārināmika disposition, is inherent in the nature of the soul and exists independent of the operation of karmas. Jivatva, for instance, is a pārināmika-bhāva of a soul, since 1. Sarvarthasıddhı II.1
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