Sambodhi 2006 Vol 30

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

Page 47

Vol. XXX, 2006
VARIOUS VIEWS ON SVABHAVA: A CRITICAL SURVEY
vaidyake tu
svabhavam isvaram kālaṁ yadṛchha niyatim tatha pariņāmaṁ ca manyate prakṛtim pṛthudarsinaḥ//
According to medical science, however, farsighted men consider svabhava, God, Time, Accident, Destiny and the evolution (of primeval matter) as the origin."
The CS (before the tenth century), too, in a somewhat different context (viz. how a man is born) refers severally to svabhava and yadrecha (Sutrasthana, 11.6):
Srutivedacca
mataram pitaram caike manyate janmakārāṇam/
svabhavam paranirmanam yadrecham capare janāḥ//
Tradition also differs on this matter. Thus some hold that the mother and father are the actual authors of one's birth; Others that it is the law of Nature; some others that it is divine. handiwork and still others that it mere accident.42
41
In the medical tradition as embodied in the CS, causality is an article of faith. Accidentalism, therefore, was anathema to it." When Bharadvaja, a sage, proposes that svabhava alone is the cause, of both man and his diseases "just as roughness, fluidity, mobility and heat are respectively the nature of earth, water, air and fire", Kañkäyana, another sage, rejects it on the ground that "for, then, effort would be fruitless and things would either be accomplished or not accomplished simply by the course of svabhava" (Sutrasthana, 25. 21-22).
Here, again, svabhava is treated as akriyāvāda, futility of all efforts.
Elsewhere in the CS, however, svabhava appears to be an accepted fact relevant to medicine. In the passage quoted above, the text seems to view svabhava as Asvaghosa did."
We may cite yet another view on yadṛecha which runs contrary to all the views mentioned above. Dalhana (twelfth century) explains yadrecha as nimittavada. He writes:
yo yato bhavati tat tannimittam iti yadrechikäḥ. yathatṛṇāraṇinimitto vahṇir iti.
Whatever is there (in the world) is due to its own reason-such