Svabhāva
| Key Term | svabhāva |
|---|---|
| Hover Popup Choices | nature; intrinsic nature; own nature |
| In Tibetan Script | རང་བཞིན་ |
| Wylie Tibetan Transliteration | rang bzhin |
| Devanagari Sanskrit Script | स्वभाव |
| Romanized Sanskrit | svabhāva |
| Tibetan Phonetic Rendering | rangzhin |
| Chinese Script | 自性 |
| Chinese Pinyin | zìxìng |
| English Standard | intrinsic nature |
| Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term | nature |
| Richard Barron's English Term | nature of being |
| Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term | inherent nature |
| Dan Martin's English Term | own-ness |
| Ives Waldo's English Term | intrinsic nature |
| Term Type | Noun |
| Source Language | Sanskrit |
| Basic Meaning | The nature or essence of a thing, which originates only from itself and is not dependent on any external entities, causes or conditions. |
| Has the Sense of | An innate attribute that establishes the completely independent existence of an entity, which is typically refuted in the Madhyamaka notion of emptiness. |
| Definitions | |
| Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism | See page 879: In Sanskrit, “self-nature,” “intrinsic existence,” or “inherent existence,” the term has a general sense of “essence” or “nature,” but is used in philosophical literature. |
| Rangjung Yeshe's English Term | An inherently existent and independent entity of the individual self or of phenomena. Something that can serve as a valid basis for individual attributes. |
| Other Definitions | Richard Barron: the very nature of things |