Mahavira and his Teaching

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

Page 114

BHAVYATVA AND ABHAVYATVA
107
a person, says Asanga, should be matured by the Bodhisattva not for pari-nırvāna but only for wholesome states (sugatz) within the mundane existence.1
The remarkable concurrence between the Jains and the Buddhists on the concepts of bhavya and abhavya, and the conspicuous absence of such a doctrine in any but the later theistic darśanas, such as of Rāmānuja? and Madhva, points to the possibility that belief in 'predestination' in some form or other originated with the ancient śramaņas. It is even conceivable that these theories developed as plausible modifications to the absolute determinism or Niyatı-vāda of the śramaņa Makkhali Gosāla,3 a contemporary of both the Buddha and Mahāvīra. This doctrine finds concise expression in the Samanna-phala-sutta, 4 a Buddhist text of great antiquity:
“There is no cause, either ultimate or remote, for the depravity of beings; they become depraved without reason and without cause. There is no cause, either proximate or remote, for the rectitude of beings, they become pure without reason and without cause. The attainment of any given condition, of any character, does not depend on one's own acts, or on the acts of another or on human effort. There is no such thing as power or energy, or human strength or human vigour. All animals, all creatures (with one, two or more senses), all beings (produced from eggs or in a womb), all souls (in plants) are without force and power
tatra paripácyâh pudgalah samāsataś catvārah/srävakagotrah Śrāvakayane, pratye kabuddhagotrah pratyekabuddhayane/ buddhagotro mahāyāne paripácayıtavyah/ agotrastho'pi pudgalah sugatīgamanāya paripácayılavyo bhavati Bodhisattvabhūmi, p. 55. On the admission of a class of ‘nitya-samsārins' in the system of Rāmānuja, see Sharma: Philosophy of Sri Madhvacārya, p 209. See A. L. Basham. History and Doctrine of the Ajiurkas, London, 1951. Digha-nikaya I,=Dialogues of the Buddha, Vol. I, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids, London, 1956, (pp. 65-95)
4.