The article discusses Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpavṛtti and Avalokitavrata’s Prajñāpradīpaṭīkā commentaries on the “not without a cause” (nāpy ahetutaḥ) alternative of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.1ab, from which it emerges that at least two distinct theories of causality can be attributed to the Lokāyata school. The first one is a physicalist theory that confines all causal relations within the sphere of material elements and is assimilated to accidentalism. The second one is a naturalist theory that attributes causal power to inner nature (svabhāva). The paper discusses the theoretical differences between these two approaches, considers Bhāviveka’s and Avalokitavrata’s counter-arguments and concludes that some of the conjectures that modern scholars have put forward on the relation between svabhāvavāda, accidentalism and Lokāyata should be revised.
目次
Abstract 1 1 Introduction 2 2 The Two Lokāyata Non-cause Theories 3 2.1 The Non-substantial Non-cause Theory 6 2.1.1 Bhāviveka’s Counter-Argument to the Non-substantial Non-cause Theory 9 2.1.2 The Label of Accidentalism 10 2.2 The First Substantial Non-cause Theory 12 2.2.1 Who Are the Naturalists? 14 2.2.2 Avalokitavrata’s Definition of Inner Nature 15 2.2.3 Bhāviveka’s Counter-Argument to the Substantial Non-cause Theory 18 3 Some Concluding Remarks 20 References 21 Primary Sources 21 Secondary Sources 22
