Sambodhi 2006 Vol 30

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

Page 49

Vol. XXX, 2006
VARIOUS VIEWS ON SVABHĀVA: A CRITICAL SURVEY
Samantabhadra, Haribhadra, Siddhasena Divākara svabhāva associated with the Cārvāka:
Sīlānka, Vādirājsūri, (Jinabhadragaņi?)47
That the Jain writers fail to provide a unanimous view of svabhāva is indicative of the confusion around the doctrine itself. The only interesting aspect, not found in other sources, is the syncretic approach which is an extension of syadvāda. As Siddhasena Divākara (eighth century) writes:
kāle sahāva niyai puvvakamma purisakāraṇegaṁtā nicchattam tam ceva u samāsao huộti sammattam//48
Neither time nor svabhāva, destiny, previous action or manliness is to be taken as the only cause, but to take the combination of
all of them is surely the right view.
V. M. Kulkarni includes Haribhadra among the Jain writers who advanced the syncretic view but does not mention where Haribhadra said so. 49 Kulkarni seems to have Haribhadra's SVS in his mind. Haribhadra first refutes svabhāvavāda as follows:
svo bhāvasca svabhāvo'pi svasattaiva hi bhāvataḥ tasyāpi bhedakābhāve vaicitryaṁ nopapadyatell tatastasyavisiştatvād yugapad visvasambhavaḥ/ na cāsāviti sadyuktyā tadvādo'pi na sarigataḥ// tattatkālādisāpekso visvahetuḥ sa cennanu/ muktah svabhāvavādah syāt kālavādaparigrahāt// 50 But even then the variety of objects cannot be attributed to svabhāva. If svabhāva is accepted as the source of all things on earth then everything should have been produced at a time, because svabhāva is uniform. Yet it is not so and the doctrine is not (logically) consistent. If it (svabhāva) is accepted as the cause of the world not irrespective of time, etc. (viz. svabhāva, niyati and karman), it will not do, for it would entail the end of
svabhāvavāda, for (thereby) it adopts kālavāda.
Yet Haribhadra does not reject svabhāva out of hand. His only objection is that neither svabhāva nor kāla, etc. are to be taken as the sole cause: for