Finally, there was the possibility of svabhāva being an essential property, a quality of a thing that it could not lose without ceasing to be that thing, such as heat is for
fire. We have already seen that a property cannot exist without the individual in which it is instantiated.
Moreover, if things had this kind of essential property, this would imply that nothing could ever change. If the tree had, essentially, five branches, say, then we could never saw one off; if atoms of bark were essentially hard, they could never decompose (MMK 15; 8–9). Westerhoff draws attention to two possible replies to this.
The annihilationist claims that atoms with svabhāva do not change their essential
properties; rather, what we experience as change, is actually the arising and fading away of a succession of atoms, which exist for a limited time with a fixed essence.
The permutationist posits the same atoms with fixed essences, yet regards these as existing eternally.
What appears to us as change is, in reality, a continual re-arranging of these atoms. Both arguments are subject to the same critique. Westerhoff asks what could be
responsible for the arising and perishing of atoms in the annihilationist‘s‘ account, and similarly, we could ask about what causes the permutationist‘s atoms to move around and to form new arrangements.
If this occurs in dependence upon causes and conditions, then,once again, we do not have an entity with svabhāva, but just another object which is dependently co-originated (Westerhoff 2009, 38–40). In short, Nāgārjuna employs several arguments to show that if one believes svabhāva, then nothing could arise or give rise to anything else, nothing could change, or ever come to an end either. Besides being at odds with everyday experience, this would also contradict the doctrine of Dependent Co-origination, and render the whole prospect of following the Buddhist path to liberation untenable (MMK 24: 20–32).