Sambodhi 2006 Vol 30

Author(s): J B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 44

38
RAMKRISHNA BHATTACHARYA
SAMBODHI
whereas later commentators like Vardhamana Upadhaya deny both efficient and material causes, thus denying causality as such. Phaṇibhuṣaṇa Tarkavägisa has elaborately discussed the problem without being able to offer any acceptable solution. He concludes with the following remark: "Intelligent people after reviewing all that has been said above should ponder over the chief significance of the exponent's view as desired by the great sage, Gotama."""
Samkhya
Commentaries on the SK refer to the doctrine of svabhava in passing. The SSS, the earliest commentary translated into Chinese by Paramartha (sixth century CE), while glossing on v.27, says:
Some attribute actions to spirit (puruşa), others to the Lord (Isvara) or to a material being. Opinions differing thus, each from the rest, I have had this doubt. Why? Because the eleven. organs are capable of seizing the eleven objects, but Nature (prakṛti), Mahat and the sentiment of self [ahamkara] are unconscious and cannot have such a capacity (of production). This verse is found in the work of the Lokayatas:
"What produces the white colour of the hamsas [swans], the green colour of the parrots, and the variegated colour of the peacock, it is from that I too am created".
This is for the first time that such a verse, presumably related to the doctrine of svabhava, is associated with the Lokayata."
In his commentary on SK, v. 61, the commentator reverts to this theme, viz., why puruşa or isvara, etc. cannot be regarded as the cause of the world:
Then, the master who considers spontaneity [svabhava] as the cause (of the world) says, "The opinion which asserts that in seeing Nature [prakṛti] one obtains Deliverance is not correct, for Deliverance is obtained spontaneously; it has been said higher up (v. xxvii): What produces the white colour of hamsas, the green colour of the parrots, and the variegated colour of the peacocks, it is from that that I too am created. Thus spontaneity is the cause of the entire world; Deliverance is effectuated then spontaneously and not by Nature.""