Bhattacharya International Buddhist Foundation
Reflections on the Madhyamika Buddhism of Acharya Nagarjuna and
Acharya Chandrakirti with a Special Emphasis on Understanding the
Concept of Shunyata
Dr. Amartya Kumar Bhattacharya
BCE (Hons.) ( Jadavpur ), MTech ( Civil ) ( IIT Kharagpur ), PhD ( Civil ) ( IIT Kharagpur ),
Cert.MTERM ( AIT Bangkok ), CEng(I), FIE, FACCE(I), FISH, FIWRS, FIPHE, FIAH, FAE,
MIGS, MIGS – Kolkata Chapter, MIGS – Chennai Chapter, MISTE, MAHI, MISCA, MIAHS,
MISTAM, MNSFMFP, MIIBE, MICI, MIEES, MCITP, MISRS, MISRMTT, MAGGS, MCSI,
MIAENG, MMBSI, MBMSM
Chairman and Managing Director,
MultiSpectra Consultants,
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E-mail: dramartyakumar@gmail.com
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Buddha Vandana
A common accusation made against the Madhyamika philosophy of emptiness ( shunyata ) is
that it entails nihilism. One needs to look no further than Acharya Nagarjuna's own works —
such as the Stanzas on the Middle Way, the Refutation of Objections, and the Seventy Stanzas
on Emptiness —to find this criticism made by his opponents. If everything is empty, the
opponents contend, then nothing exists at all. Madhyamika philosophy thus destroys the
entire world and with it the very possibility of Buddhist spiritual life. However, Madhyamikas
are quick to refute this claim that the emptiness of things means that these things do not exist
at all. Acharya Nagarjuna warns against such a nihilistic misunderstanding of emptiness,
saying that by this misconception of emptiness 'a person of little intelligence is destroyed, like
by a snake wrongly seized or a spell wrongly cast'. His intention is not to negate the world, nor
does the teaching of emptiness, when rightly understood, destroy the possibility of Buddhist
spiritual life.
On the contrary, emptiness means, Acharya Nagarjuna says, not that entities are non-existent
but rather that they are empty of, i.e. lack, independent or autonomous being. Entities are
without inherent existence ( swabhava ). Emptiness denotes that things exist but their
existence is never self-standing. The existence of entities is always dependent on many
conditions.
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Some of these conditions are external to the entities themselves. The existence of a tree, for
example, depends upon various extrinsic conditions — such as the earth in which it is rooted,
rain, sunshine, the seed from which it grew, and so on. Without these conditions, the tree
would not exist. But the Madhyamika also says that entities depend for their existence upon
intrinsic factors —namely, the various necessary parts which make up the entity. The tree
cannot exist without its essential constituents, such as the roots, the trunk, the branches, and
so forth. So, the tree does not have an autonomous existence. It does not and cannot stand
alone in the world, as it were, unsupported by other entities and independent of its
indispensable parts.
And what is true of the tree in this respect is equally the case, according to the Madhyamika,
for all other things. This can be most potently realized in the case of one's own self. One's
existence is clearly dependent on numerous factors both external and internal. One's existence
depends, for instance, on the benign environmental conditions in which one lives — that there
is enough oxygen to breathe, that the sun has heated the world to a temperature which makes
human life possible, that one lives in a peaceful society and in a society without epidemics.
Further, one's existence depends on the continued functioning of one's various parts — one
would cease to exist if one's essential parts such as one's heart, lungs or brain stopped
working. In terms of traditional Buddhist categories, one's existence relies on the five
constituent aggregates ( skandhas ) of form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness.
Thus, Acharya Nagarjuna is able to claim — in both the Stanzas on the Middle Way and the
Refutation of Objections — that it is only because things are empty, i.e. devoid of autonomous
existence, that they can come into existence in dependence upon various conditions. It is the
rejection, rather than the acceptance, of emptiness which in fact destroys all entities. If things
were not empty of autonomous existence then there could be no explanation of the manifold
dependently originating entities which undeniably do occur. The world would be static,
unchanging, which is evidently not the case. Acharya Nagarjuna declares :
'Since a phenomenon not dependently originating does not exist, a non-empty phenomenon
certainly does not exist.'
Most importantly for Buddhist practitioners, it is, according to Acharya Nagarjuna, the
emptiness of all things which makes spiritual life possible. It is because all entities lack
autonomous existence that change can occur. Things change when the things upon which they
depend change. And Buddhist practice is fundamentally about change. That is, Buddhism is
about transforming — by means of ethical conduct, meditation, mindfulness and so forth —
unskilful mental events into skilful mental events. Buddhism is about progressing from a state
of ignorance to a state of enlightenment, from ignorance to wisdom. If entities were not empty
— if they possessed an independent existence unaffected by any alterations in other things —
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they would be unchanging and unchangeable. And, thus, if we were autonomously existing
beings, we would be unable to gain enlightenment, or indeed to make any spiritual progress at
all. We would be stuck, spiritually speaking, with the way we are at present.
So, the Madhyamika claim is that everything — including, most importantly, the spiritual life
itself — is made possible by emptiness. The contention that entities are not empty contradicts
the empirically verifiable reality that things change when the factors upon which these things
rely alter, and would, furthermore, completely undermine the possibility of spiritual
transformation. As Acharya Nagarjuna says:
'For whom emptiness exists, all things are possible. For whom emptiness does not exist,
nothing is possible.'
The teaching of emptiness is actually an affirmation of the dynamic interconnectedness of all
things.
Thus, the Madhyamika teaching of emptiness appears to be a re-statement of the venerable
and central Buddhist teaching of dependent origination ( pratityasamutpada ). Indeed,
Acharya Nagarjuna proclaims in the auto-commentary to the Refutation of Objections that
emptiness and dependent origination are synonyms. And in the Seventy Stanzas on
Emptiness he declares that 'since all entities are empty of inherent existence, the unequalled
Tathagata taught the dependent origination of entities'. This Madhyamika rejection of the
accusation of nihilism is expressed succinctly by Acharya Chandrakirti, in his commentary on
Acharya Nagarjuna's Stanzas on the Middle Way:
He proclaims:
'Some people insist that the Madhyamikas are not different from nihilists, since the
Madhyamikas say that good and bad acts, the agent, the consequences of acts, and the entire
world are empty of an inherently existing nature. As the nihilists also say that these things do
not exist, the Madhyamikas are the same as nihilists. We reply that this is not the case. Why?
Because Madhyamikas are proponents of dependent origination.'
In which case, it appears that the Madhyamika philosophy is not really saying anything new.
Madhyamika is re-affirming a doctrine which seems to have been at the heart of Buddhism
from the earliest times. The doctrine of emptiness — understood as a re-statement of the
dependently originating nature of all things — is the true Middle Way ( Madhyamika )
philosophy. It avoids the extremes of nihilism ( which says that all entities are non-existent in
reality ) and eternalism ( which says that some or all entities in reality have existence
independent of conditions ). The Middle Way of dependent origination promulgated by Lord
Buddha has been expressed again by Madhyamika, albeit perhaps in a somewhat novel and
developed form. The charge of nihilism is thus easily refuted.
However, the accusation of nihilism actually has more weight to it than this analysis indicates.
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Let me explain. The claim of Madhyamikas is not limited to the fact that the emptiness, the
absence of inherent existence, of entities means that these entities originate in dependence
upon conditions. In addition, many Madhyamika statements indicate that all entities lack
inherent existence in the sense that they are conceptual constructs, mental fabrications. It is
not just that the tree, for example, originates in dependence upon numerous conditions —
such as the water, the earth, the sun and the seed. It is, furthermore, the case that the tree, the
water, the earth, the sun, the seed, etc. originate in dependence upon the mind. As this is
sometimes expressed in Madhyamika texts, all entities are simply conventions ( samvriti,
samvrita ) or fictions ( kalpana ). And other Madhyamika statements declare entities to be
name-only ( namamatra ) and to have a merely conceptual existence. Hence, Madhyamikas
often compare all entities to illusions, dreams, mirages and so forth. Entities are — like
illusions, etc. — simply fabrications, merely appearances to the mind which have no further
reality. This is why in Madhyamika texts one finds statements that dependently originating
entities do not really originate. In other words, the whole world of dependently originating
entities is simply a phantasm, a show, a mental creation, a mere appearance. So, the absence
of inherent existence, the emptiness, of all things in the final analysis means, for
Madhyamika, not simply that all things dependently originate. It means, furthermore, that all
these dependently originating things are mere mental fabrications.
But how does the Madhyamika reach this conclusion? The Madhyamika contention, it
appears, is that the dependent origination of entities actually entails that these entities are
conceptual constructs. This is because an entity, by virtue of its origination in dependence on
various internal and external conditions, is always analysable into these conditions. Thus,
according to Madhyamika, the entity is simply a name or concept attributed to the
conglomeration of conditions. The Madhyamika would challenge us to examine any entity
whatsoever. A tree, for example, is made up of various components — the trunk, roots,
branches, bark, leaves and so forth. And the tree is also dependent on various external factors,
such as soil, sunshine, water, and so forth. The Madhyamika contends that, if one examines
the entity which one calls 'tree' one finds that, in reality, there is nothing there other than
these various parts and external conditions operating in conjunction. There is not in fact a
separate 'tree-entity'. As the Madhyamikas sometimes put this point, when analysed, an
entity, any entity, is actually unfindable. When one searches for the tree-entity, for instance, it
dissolves — so to speak — into its components and external conditions. Actually, the
Madhyamika would say, the entity which we call 'tree' is simply a name, a concept, which the
mind attributes to these various conditions. There is no mind-independent tree-entity. Hence,
dependent origination means that dependently originating entities have a merely conceptual
existence.
Buddhism is well-known for carrying out this sort of analysis with regard to the self ( atman ).
The self, when examined, is discovered to be composed of five ever-changing psycho-physical
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factors, physical form, feelings, conceptions, volitions, and consciousness. What one calls 'the
self' is simply the inter-play and constant flow of these various factors. If one looks closely at
one's experience, there is no additional factor, it is argued, which might be called the self. The
self is, then, just a name, a concept, which is attributed by the mind to this ever-changing
psycho-physical process. The Milindapanha famously compares the self in this respect to a
chariot, which ( it is claimed ) is simply a name imputed to the collection of its parts—the axle,
wheels, frame, reins, yoke, and so forth.
Madhyamika applies this reasoning to each and every thing. Just as the self or a chariot
cannot withstand analysis, so it is with every entity. If one examines any entity, it can be
analysed into internal and external conditions. The entity itself will be found to be nothing
more than a name or concept which is used to label the conjunction of these conditions. These
conditions will themselves be found to be mere names or concepts used to label their own
conditions, and so on. In no case is an entity anything in itself; it does not exist inherently,
mind-independently. In all cases, entities will be found, in other words, to be empty. Thus,
every entity whatsoever is simply a name, a concept, a mental fabrication with no further
existence.
And one must not make the mistake, according to Madhyamika, of thinking that the mind
itself escapes this analysis. The mind too is empty. When analysed it is found to be just a name
or concept given to its components and external conditions, and the components and external
conditions are themselves liable to the same sort of analysis into their components and
external conditions. This appears to be the principal objection of Madhyamika to the
Yogachara philosophy, an objection which stimulated a number of sustained critiques by
Madhyamikas of what they claim to be the Yogachara contention that consciousness or the
mind has inherent existence. The Madhyamika is insistent that the entire dependently
originating world — both physical and mental — has a merely conceptual existence.
But this Madhyamika claim that everything is mentally fabricated is surely problematic.
Contrary to the Madhyamika position, it does not seem to follow that, because all entities can
be analysed in terms of their internal and external conditions, the entities are nothing more
than names or concepts attributed to the conglomeration of conditions. The Madhyamika
equation of dependently originating existence with conceptual existence is questionable. It is
true that entities exist in dependence on internal and external conditions. But this does not
entail that these entities are merely mental fabrications. Arguably, an entity may be a mindindependent reality, but nevertheless depend for its existence on a variety of external
conditions and essential components. A tree, for instance, may exist independently of the
mind even though it is dependent on numerous external conditions and components for its
existence. An entity is not necessarily simply a concept, entirely reducible to the intrinsic and
external factors on which its existence depends. The Madhyamika claim — a form of extreme
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ontological reductionism — that entities which can be analysed into external and internal
conditions have a merely conceptual existence can be resisted.
In fact, many Buddhists and non-Buddhists have found unacceptable the Madhyamika
contention that all entities have a merely conceptual existence. Their objection would be that,
even if it is true that everything dependently originates, it is not true that everything
whatsoever is a fabrication. One can see here why opponents of Madhyamika — as
represented even in Madhyamika texts — accused the Madhyamikas of nihilism. They perhaps
have a point after all. For an entirely fabricated world — with no basis at all which is real, i.e.
anything more than a conceptual construction — would seem to be hardly distinguishable
from a non-existent world. Conceptually constructed things, it can be contended, need an
unconstructed basis out of which they are constructed. Arguably, also, conceptual
construction requires an agent of the construction — someone or something which is doing
the constructing — which is not him / itself a conceptual construction. Perhaps, then,
Madhyamikas have gone too far in asserting the merely fabricated nature of all things. The
Madhyamika philosophy, it can be claimed, is not the Middle Way after all. It has fallen into
the extreme of nihilism.
However, Madhyamika texts are notoriously difficult to unravel, and they can often admit of a
variety of interpretations. It is also possible that the Madhyamika tradition is not entirely
internally consistent. There may be more than one philosophical stance advanced in
Madhyamika texts. Furthermore, it may be that the Madhyamikas in some respects had not
considered the possible implications of their often laconic statements, and that some of these
statements may be compatible with more than one philosophical position. In studying
Madhyamika, one is often faced with the problem of interpretative uncertainty. But it is this
very interpretative uncertainty which can perhaps offer some possible ways out of the
nihilistic predicament. While the reading of Madhyamika which I have presented is supported
by many textual passages, and the nihilistic interpretation of Madhyamika is thus plausible, it
need not be the only understanding of Madhyamika which can be countenanced. Even if one
finds that the nihilistic interpretation of Madhyamika is a credible reading of many
Madhyamika texts, it is worth investigating some ways in which the Madhyamika might claim
that things have a fabricated, conceptually constructed existence, while avoiding the charge of
nihilism. I will consider briefly three non-nihilistic readings of this Madhyamika contention.
(1). Emptiness and the Unconditioned. The nihilistic interpretation of Madhyamika says that
everything is empty in the sense that everything lacks inherent existence, which means both
that everything is dependently originating and that all these dependently originating things
are mere fabrications. But surely, it might be suggested, this philosophy of emptiness does not
for Madhyamika apply to Nirvana? Buddhists often say that Nirvana is an unconditioned
( asamskrita ) sphere attained by the liberated person. There is some room for interpretation
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about the nature of this unconditioned sphere. However, quite a few Buddhist texts seem to
suggest that it is a permanent Reality which transcends the conditioned ( samskrita ) world of
dependently originating entities, a permanent Reality which is apprehended by the liberated
person and, it seems, into which the liberated person passes — in some undefined sense —
after his death. It is a true refuge and the source of real bliss, unlike the conditioned, mundane
things of this world. In which case, the Buddhist claim that everything is dependently
originating actually means that every conditioned thing is dependently originating. The
Unconditioned is, by contrast, not subject to dependent origination. Similarly, perhaps the
Madhyamika claim that everything is a mental fabrication applies only to the conditioned
world, and there is for the Madhyamika an Unconditioned Reality which is real, unfabricated
and blissful.
There are a number of Madhyamika texts which might be understand as advocating such an
Unconditioned Reality. Passages that might support this reading of Madhyamika are found
even in the writings attributed to Acharya Nagarjuna himself, especially but not exclusively in
his corpus of hymns. Thus, for example, the Hymn to the Inconceivable says that:
'Convention arises from causes and conditions and is dependent. The dependent is
proclaimed in this way [by the Buddha]. But the ultimate is uncreated. Also, it is called
swabhava, nature, Reality, substance, essence, and true being.'
This Unconditioned Reality can be called 'emptiness', but not in the sense that it lacks
inherent existence. Rather, this Unconditioned Reality is empty in the sense that it is beyond
all words, beyond all conceptualisation and empty of all the taints / defilements of the
conditioned world. There are certainly passages in Madhyamika works which refer to Reality
as ineffable and as transcending conceptualisation. Thus, the Stanzas on the Middle Way
state:
'Not dependent on another, calm, not diffused by verbal diffusion, free from conceptual
discrimination, without diversity — this is the description of Reality.'
In this case, even the word 'emptiness' is merely a provisional aid, which will at best point us
towards the ineffable Reality which words cannot possibly describe. When talking about the
Unconditioned Reality, only metaphors and not descriptions are appropriate. There is always
a degree of distortion or falsification of the Unconditioned Reality whenever it is expressed in
words, yet some words are required in order to assist those who have not yet realised this
Unconditioned Reality for themselves. Acharya Chandrakirti declares:
'What hearing and what teaching can there be of the unutterable truth (dharma)? And yet, the
unutterable [truth] is heard and taught through superimposition.'
Even emptiness is itself empty, i.e. unable to describe the Unconditioned Reality as it actually
is. It is itself a superimposition. This explains, it might be argued, the common Madhyamika
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claim that the Madhyamika has no view, position or thesis. The Madhyamika, according to
this interpretation, has no philosophical stance at all about the nature of the Unconditioned
Reality, knowing that this Reality is in fact quite indescribable.
It is of course debatable whether this notion of an indescribable Reality is intelligible. One
might object that the claim that Reality is indescribable is itself a description of this Reality.
And it is perhaps difficult to comprehend how the Madhyamika can avoid incoherence if he
treats as metaphors rather than descriptions his claims that the Unconditioned Reality is
unconditioned, permanent, and unfabricated.
Leaving aside these philosophical problems, such an understanding of Madhyamika need not
deny that Madhyamika teaches that the things of the conditioned world are empty in the sense
that they are mental fabrications. But this mundane sense of emptiness needs to be
complemented by the teaching of the higher emptiness, which points us towards the ineffable
Unconditioned Reality.
However, here we are faced again by the problem of interpretative uncertainty. For many
Madhyamika texts seem to imply that emptiness is not an ineffable Unconditioned Reality,
itself exempted from the general rule that all entities are empty of inherent existence. Rather,
emptiness is nothing more than the ultimate truth about entities — it is how they actually are.
It is purely and simply their lack of inherent existence. The Hymn to the Inconceivable says:
'The ultimate truth is the teaching that objects are without inherent existence.'
In the Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness, Acharya Nagarjuna declares that the ultimate is no
more than the teaching that things are dependently originating, because they lack inherent
existence.
Furthermore, Acharya Nagarjuna's famous claim that 'there is no difference between Samsara
and Nirvana' can be interpreted to mean that, just like the entities which constitute cyclic
existence, Nirvana as an unfabricated Unconditioned Reality is itself a fiction, a mental
creation. So, Acharya Chandrakirti proclaims that Nirvana is simply a convention and thus
lacks inherent existence. It is not in fact an inherently existing Unconditioned Reality. It is
true that these statements might be read as an attack on the term 'Nirvana', if understood as
ultimately denoting what is actually an ineffable Reality. But it is also possible that Acharya
Nagarjuna and Acharya Chandrakirti are here negating the ineffable Reality itself, and not just
the ability of the term 'Nirvana' to describe it. In this latter case, it would appear that the only
genuine Nirvana which the Madhyamika can accept is the psychological state of freedom from
craving, attachment and suffering which supposedly results from the realisation that all things
are empty. The Sixty Verses of Reasoning declares:
'The thorough knowledge of Samsara is Nirvana.'
On this verse, Acharya Chandrakirti comments that the thorough knowledge in question is the
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fact that Samsara arises without inherent existence. Nirvana — far from being an
unfabricated, unconditioned ontological realm — is simply the insight into the merely
conventional nature of all things.
The Madhyamika texts which state that Madhyamikas have no views, positions or theses are
thus to be understood as meaning only that Madhyamikas have no views, positions or theses
which assert the inherent existence of anything. Madhyamikas do assert the emptiness, the
absence of inherent existence, of all entities. This emptiness is permanent only in the sense
that the absence of inherent existence is always and everywhere the true nature of things.
Emptiness is the emptiness of the chair, the emptiness of the tree, the emptiness of the
person, and so forth. There is an emptiness, an absence of inherent existence, for each and
every thing. Emptiness is itself empty, according to this interpretation of Madhyamika,
precisely because it is not an autonomous, Unconditioned Reality. On the contrary, emptiness
only exists in dependence on the things of which it is the emptiness. Without entities, there
would be no emptiness. Emptiness is itself dependently originating.
This disagreement about the meaning of emptiness entails, or is entailed by, quite divergent
and incompatible understandings of Madhyamika philosophy. On the one hand, there is the
understanding of Madhyamika as asserting that reality is simply the lack of inherent existence
of all entities. On the other hand, there is the understanding of Madhyamika as advocating, in
addition, a further reality — the higher emptiness — which is quite beyond all conceptual and
linguistic categories. It is undefinable and indescribable. Madhyamika understood in this
latter way is, it might be argued, not nihilism for, even if the conditioned world is envisaged by
them as totally fabricated, there is for the Madhyamika an entirely unfabricated
Unconditioned Reality. However, it might be objected that such a version of Madhyamika
simply combines nihilism with regard to the fabricated, conditioned world with an eternalistic
belief in a permanent and blissful Nirvana. If this objection is correct, far from treading the
Middle Way, such a Madhyamika appears to fall into both extreme views simultaneously.
(2). Madhyamika as Process Philosophy. The nihilistic reading of Madhyamika contends that
for Madhyamika all things are conceptual constructs. There is no unconstructed basis on
which the conceptual construction takes place. But perhaps the Madhyamika might claim
that, although all entities are indeed conceptually constructed, there is nevertheless an
unfabricated substratum for conceptual construction. This substratum is to be envisaged as an
entity-free flow of pure change with no divisions or distinctions. When conceptual
construction occurs, this undifferentiated process gets carved up, so to speak, into distinct
entities. What is really there is the entity-free flow of change. The manifold world of entities is
a superimposition on this basic and unfabricated flow. Nihilism is thus averted, because there
is a substratum on the basis of which conceptual construction can take place. And the
Madhyamika claim that all entities are conceptual constructs or conventions is also preserved,
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because the substratum is not itself an entity — it is the undifferentiated stuff out of which the
conceptually constructed world of entities is fashioned.
A difficulty is, however, that there seems to be little textual evidence which would give any
explicit support to this reading of Madhyamika. If the Madhyamikas did think that there is
such an undifferentiated substratum for conceptually constructed entities, they certainly have
not, as far as I can see, expressed this vital point in their texts. The interpretation is thus
rather speculative, being ungrounded in textual evidence. Nevertheless, one might argue that,
though the Madhyamikas do not articulate that there is such a substratum, it remains a
possible philosophical solution to the problem of nihilism, which is compatible with what they
do say.
However, though it overcomes the problem of nihilism, this reading involves philosophical
problems of its own, two of which I shall highlight.
First, it can be argued that the idea of 'change' always presupposes something which is
changing. Change is arguably always a characteristic of an entity. The notion of change
without an entity of which it is the change is of is perhaps incomprehensible. In other words,
the notion of an entity-free substratum of change, upon which conceptually constructed
entities are imposed, may be incoherent.
Second, it is far from clear that it is correct to claim that the world as it exists independently of
the fabricating mind is undifferentiated into distinct entities. This interpretation is
philosophically suspect in that it contends that all distinctions, all differentiations between
and within entities, are a result of conceptual construction. This seems to give the
constructing mind an inordinate amount of power. It seems far more likely that many of the
distinctions which are made between and within entities have a basis is a mind-independent
reality, even if this mind-independent reality is distorted or added to in the process of the
perception of it.
(3). Emptiness as an Epistemological Doctrine. In this case, perhaps the Madhyamika means
that, although the world is not entirely a mental fabrication, it is difficult to disentangle what
is actually the case about the world as it exists independently of one's own mind from the
interpretations and valuations which one imposes upon the world.
It seems undeniable that many of our perceptions and understandings of the world are heavily
influenced by our prejudices and fantasies. Most importantly, from the Buddhist point of
view, we are ( it is thought ) afflicted by the fantasy that entities have a permanence and
reliability which they simply do not have in reality. According to Buddhist analysis, on the
basis of this fantasy we crave, get attached and then suffer. We would do well to see this
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fantasy for what it is. We must, in this case, see that the permanence and reliability which we
attribute to the things which we covet do not actually inhere in the entities themselves; these
characteristics of things are simply false attributions made by one's deluded mind. Things are
certainly empty of the permanence and reliability which one's mind tends to impose upon
them.
Furthermore, there is a serious epistemological problem in establishing how the world exists
independently of our interpretation-laden perceptions of it, for one's apprehension of the
world is necessarily of the world as perceived, not as it is in itself. One can never step outside
one's perceptions, so to speak, in order to see the world as it really is in itself, for this very
seeing would itself be a perception.
Thus, when the Madhyamika says that entities lack inherent existence, perhaps he means that
entities as perceived lack inherent existence, because much of the perception of the entity is
actually a contribution of the perceiving mind. Entities are empty of inherent existence — i.e.
are conceptual constructs or mere conventions — in so far as entities as perceived are always
subject to the interpretative framework of the perceiver.
This claim that the world, as it exists independently of our perceptions, is inaccessible to us is
quite different from the nihilistic position that everything is fabricated. It is saying that the
apprehension of things necessarily involves fabrication, because of the interpretative
contributions of the apprehender, rather than that the things themselves, independent of the
apprehension of them, do not exist.
One might, however, feel quite suspicious of this interpretation of Madhyamika because it
seems to turn Madhyamika philosophy into a species of Kantianism. Thus, the charge of
anachronism might be made. Nevertheless, it is surely not impossible that philosophical
traditions from distinct times and cultures might have developed similar insights and there is
perhaps some textual evidence in support of such a reading of Madhyamika.
Most notably, there is an extensive critique in the Refutation of Objections ( and its
commentary ) of the means of knowledge ( pramana ) and objects of knowledge ( prameya ).
Acharya Nagarjuna attempts to demonstrate that there is no way of proving that the means of
knowledge — identified as perception, inferential reasoning, analogy and verbal testimony —
do actually apprehend objects of knowledge as they exist mind-independently. It seems, then,
that Acharya Nagarjuna's intention in this critique is not to prove that there are no mindindependent entities, but rather that we cannot establish that our means of knowing these
objects are able to apprehend them as they actually are, without distortion or
superimposition.
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Bhattacharya International Buddhist Foundation
In addition, the Treatise of Pulverisation ( and its commentary ) stresses the mutual
dependence of the means of knowledge and the object of knowledge. Perhaps the point is that
knowledge requires an object ( in order to be knowledge of something) yet the object as
known (as opposed to how it is in itself ) is altered by the very act of knowing it. Objects as
they are in themselves are inaccessible to the mind. Objects as known are conventions and
lack inherent existence in so far as the entity as it is in itself remains concealed behind the veil
of the mind's own interpretative activity.
In this reading of Madhyamika, nihilism is replaced by scepticism. The ontological claim that
all entities are mere fabrications is supplanted by the epistemological notion that entities as
they exist in themselves are unknowable, obscured by the fabricating activity of the mind. The
Madhyamika philosophy of emptiness treads the Middle Way between the nihilistic claim that
everything is totally a fabrication and the naive realists' contention that one has access to the
unfabricated world as it actually is. However, there might be an objection that this scepticism
makes too severe a break between mind-independent things and one's efforts to apprehend
them. Perhaps, it is more accurate to say that things in themselves are known to us — they are
present to us when we apprehend them — but this knowledge is nevertheless always a
negotiation between the known entity and the knower.
Unlike the scepticism I have described, this position — which might be called 'perspectival
realism' — would claim that the mind-independent entity is not inaccessible. Yet, unlike naive
realism, it acknowledges that the limitations and contributions of the apprehender entail that
the apprehended entity is never fully available to us. One's apprehension of the entity is
always mediated by the knowing mind and its perceptual apparatus. However, this mediation
does not cut one off from mind-independent things. On the contrary, it is our only means of
access to them. But it does entail that our access is always incomplete, imperfect.
This perspectival realism seems to be compatible with the Madhyamika statements that
prameya and pramana are mutually dependent and that pramanas cannot be established to
apprehend prameyas as they are mind-independent. Entities as known are empty in the sense
that they originate in dependence upon both the mind-independent entity and the knowing
mind. But this does not mean that the mind-independent entity remains entirely concealed
from us. The Middle Way is here between scepticism and naive realism, for the Madhyamika
acknowledges that mind-independent things can be apprehended — there is no unbridgeable
gulf between the mind and reality — but that the apprehension of these things is always from
a particular vantage point.
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Bhattacharya International Buddhist Foundation