Abhava

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Abhava means non-existence, negation, nothing or absence. It is the opposite of Bhava, which means being, existing or appearing.

According to Uddayana’s view of Padārtha (categories), there are two kinds: Bhava (existence, real) and Abhava (non-existence, not real).

Existence is described by six marks: Dravya (substance), Guṇa (quality), Karma (action), Samanya (generality), Visesa (particularity) and Samavaya (inherence).

Four kinds of Abhava (as given by the Vaisheshika school):
- Pradhvamsabhava: the process by which the value of sound collapses into the gap between the first and next syllable of a word.
- Atyantabhava: the silent point or ultimate possibility within that gap.
- Anyonyabhava: how what happens inside the gap is structured.
- Pragabhava: the way the sound emerges from the gap to produce the next syllable; the mechanism is said to be in both syllables.

Different Indian schools treat Abhava as a distinct category. The Vaisheshika, Nyaya, Bhatta Mimamsa and Dvaita schools all recognize Abhava as a separate padārtha (category).

Nyaya regards Abhava as a genuine reality, linked to the important moment in a pluralistic universe and to liberation (Mukti). It is a relative and time-bound concept; Abhava can be understood when Bhava has existed, and its cognition is said to come through a special kind of perception or sense contact.

Abhava is described as the unmanifest ground from which Bhava arises. Some Buddhist-influenced thinkers, like Vasubandhu, describe Sunyata as having the own-being of Abhava rather than Bhava. Sthiramati adds that this does not mean Abhava negates Bhava; it coexists.

In this view, Abhava refers to particular things, not to Being in general. It is a theoretical denial of the existence of some specific impossibility, and it is treated by some thinkers as an independent category with its own ontological reality in Indian philosophy.

Dharmakirti saw Abhava as linked to inference (anumana). He proposed the idea of an imaginary presence of that whose absence is apprehended, to explain the character of the absence.