A Sanskrit word derived from Svabhāva, “essential nature.” According to Helena P. Blavatsky its use in theosophical contexts refers to that which is behind “world substance,” i.e., the spirit and essence of substance. She says that “the Svābhāvat of the Buddhist philosopher [is], the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent yet abstract, the self-existent plastic Essence and the root of all things, viewed in the same dual light as the Vedantin views his Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti, the one under two aspects” (SD I:46).

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