Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature

Author(s): Amulyachandra Sen
Publisher: Vishwa Bharati Calcutta

Page 40

SCHOOLS AND SECTS IN JAINA LITERATURE
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Those who say that the soul exists by itself eternally through svabhāva (Nature) are the fifth school called Svabhāvavādins. They hold that everything is caused by Nature, e.g., the clay becomes a jar and not a piece of cloth, a piece of cloth comes from yarn, while a jar does not do so. The uniform production of jars from clay shows the order of Nature. Gunaratna quotes the following as illustrating the doctrine of Svabhāvavādins :
kah kantakānām prakaroti taiksnyani 1 vicitrabhāvam mřgapakşiņām ca 11 svabhāvataḥ sarvamidam pravrttam 1 na kämacāro 'sti kutaḥ prayatnaḥ 11 badaryah kantakas tikyna rjur eka&ca kuặcitah 1 phalam ca vartulari tasyā vada kena vinirmitam 11
'What causes thorns to have sharp points and birds and beasts to have their own wonderful ways? All this is ordained by Nature and there is no caprice anywhere. Of the jujube tree the thorns are sharp-pointed, some straight, some bent, the fruit is round-by whom are all these made ?
Even the simple phenomenon of the cooking of the mudga also depends on Nature. The kankaduka mudga, for instance, cannot be cooked even after the coinbination of a pan, fuel and Time, for by nature it is a kind of cereal that is not softened by boiling. Therefore that in the presence of which effects follow and in the absence of which effects do not follow is to be regarded as the cause.
We have thus obtained five schools under asti jīvaḥ svatah "nityaḥ." Under asti jīvaḥ svatah "antiyah" we shall have another five schools accordingly as the non-eternity is predicated of kāla, etc. Then under the head asti jīvaḥ paratah "nityaḥ" we shall have another five schools according as "not of itself” is predicated of kāla, etc. The five classes of kāla, etc., are to be supplied under both nitya and anitya varieties of svatah and parataḥ. The paratah schools mean that the existence of jīva is admitted not of itself but as it is distinguished from other objects, for it is well-known how things are known by contrast with other things just as shortness is known as that which is not long, and in the same way the soul is known by distinguishing it from such objects as pillars, etc. The anitya varieties of parataḥ would give us yet another set of five schools. So we have twenty schools on jiva, the first of the "nine principles and by extending the same classification to each of the eight other principles' we have altogether