School
Svabhava
Overview
Svabhava (Sanskrit: स्वभाव, svabhāva; Pali: सभाव, sabhāva; Chinese: 自性; pinyin: zìxìng; Vietnamese: Tự tính; Tibetan: རང་བཞིན, Wylie: rang-bzhin) literally means "own-being" or "own-becoming". It is the intrinsic nature, essential nature or essence of beings.
The concept and term svabhāva are frequently encountered in Hindu and Buddhist traditions such as Advaita Vedanta (e.g. in the Avadhūta Gītā), Mahāyāna Buddhism (e.g. in the Ratnagotravibhāga), Vaishnavism (e.g., the writings of Ramanuja) and Dzogchen (e.g. in the seventeen tantras).
In the nondual Advaita Vedānta yoga text, Avadhūta Gītā, Brahman (in the Upanishadic denotation) is the svabhāva.
In the Mahāyāna Buddhadharma tradition(s) it is one of a suite of terms employed to denote the Buddha-nature, such as "gotra".
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
When a little bit of it gets into this network of time, space and causation, it apparently takes forms; remove the network and it is all One. This whole universe is all one, and is called in the Advaitist philosophy _Brahman_. _Brahman_ appearing behind the universe is called God; appearing behind the little universe--the microcosm, is the soul. This very “Self” or Âtman therefore is God in man. There is only one…
Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II
States what Svabhava is.
Becoming is the movement through which a reality or totality becomes; in the animal or plant its essence as universal genus, is that which begins its movement and brings it forth. But this whole is not the product of something foreign, but its own product, what is already present as germ or seed; thus it is called end, the self-producing, that which in its Becoming is already implicitly existent. The Idea is not a…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Svabhava is.
Thus, having started entirely from the passive element in the good, the inquiry could only proceed later to the active element, and investigate the conduct of the man who is called good, no longer with reference to others, but to himself; specially setting itself the task of explaining both the purely objective respect which such conduct produces in others, and the peculiar contentment with himself which it clearly…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
States what Svabhava is.
Philosophers who discussed Svabhava
Related ideas
- Ramanuja
- Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
- Ratnagotravibhāga
- Buddhist logico-epistemology
- Prajnaparamita
- Vaibhāṣika
- Dzogchen
- Brahman
- Nagarjuna
- Bhagavad Gita
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- Pali Canon
- Mahayana
- Advaita Vedanta
- Pratītyasamutpāda
- Theology
- Samkhya
- Theravada
- Shvetashvatara Upanishad
- Naturalism (philosophy)
- Essence
- Madhyamaka
- Nondualism
- Rigpa
Place in the tradition
Part of Buddhist philosophy.