Abstract

Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadyamakakārikā argues against the Abhidharma view that their putatively fundamental entities—the dharmas —can enter into causal relationships. The Ābhidharmikas maintain that the mark of fundamentality is having a particular kind of nature called svabhāva —a Sanskrit term that roughly translates to "own-nature." Nāgārjuna's arguments target svabhāva, attempting to show that any entity that has a svabhāva could not enter into causal relations. Nāgārjuna's arguments, however, fail against the foundationalism of the Vaibhāṣika Sarvāstivāda Ābhidharmikas because he targets a notion of svabhāva that they do not hold. This essay defends Abhidharma foundationalism against four of Nāgārjuna's causal arguments by clarifying the Vaibhāṣika understanding of svabhāva and demonstrating how their view avoids Nāgārjuna's objections. I argue that the Vaibhāṣika characterize svabhāva only as a nature that does not reductively supervene on other entities. This characterization allows for various other dependence relations among dharmas, including causal dependence. Furthermore, the Sarvāstivāda view that entities exist in the past, present, and future, if interpreted as a form of ontological pluralism, avoids Nāgārjuna's criticism that causation's temporal process must involve change, inconsistent with svabhāva 's immutability.