Buddhism
In early Theravādin texts, the term "svabhāva" did not carry the technical meaning or the soteriological weight of later writings. Much of Mahāyāna Buddhism (as in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) denies that such a svabhāva exists within any being; however, in the tathāgatagarbha sutras (notably the Nirvāṇa Sūtra), the Buddha states that the immortal and infinite Buddha-nature - or "true self" of the Buddha - is the indestructible svabhāva of beings.
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“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)