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must eliminate all its manifestations, elements etc., which constitute the false
appearance under which it manifests itself to us. To find the true reality we
must follow necessarily the same process. The true nature of the empirical
reality and the true reality are so both 'that' which 'remains' as the 'result'
o f the discursive process o f the same abolishing analysis to which we have
submitted the empirical reality.
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One of the causes which contributes the most to render difficult the understanding of the kanyata-'stheory, is the use of the word 'Absolute' to designate
it. n Rigorously it is licit to designate the kOnyatdwith the expression 'the
Absolute', but only so far as the ~nyatd is something totally different
from the empirical reality. But, although the expression 'the Absolute'
represents the utmost degree of abstraction and of elimination of intellectual
connotations, nevertheless it is loaded with religious shades and resonances.
To designate the ~anyatd as 'the Absolute' exposes us to the danger of
transporting it, unconsciously, to the religious level, of deifying it, of giving it
a sacred status. We can designate the kanyatd with the term 'Absolute', if we
ido not forget that it indeed is an 'Absolute', but an Absolute that has in itself
nothing of divine, a completely un-sacred Absolute.
The Yoga was considered in India by the majority of the philosophical and
religious schools as a means to reach the knowledge of the Absolute, be it
called Brahman, dtman or nirvd.naetc. The Mddhyamika school considered
also that the Buddhist monk, well trained in Yoga, could get in the yogic
trance the experience of the k~nyatd, the Absolute conceived by it. The
method is the same for all the schools; only the interpretation of what
happens in the trance changes from one school to another according to the
speculative principles o f each one.
In the same way as the ~dnyatdpresents no divine or sacred element, in
the same way we must consider that the experience o f the ~anyatd that the
Buddhist m o n k belonging to the Mddhyamika school has during the yogic
trance, is not a religious or mystic experience. Every religious or mystic
experience supposes a sacred object to which it aims, and this does not
happen in the case of the Mddhyamika school. The experience of the kOnyatd
is only an extra-ordinary experience of the true reality, provided with the
characteristics that we have mentioned before and which has nothing to do
with the 'being', 'not-being', 'divine', 'sacred' notions.
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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The Buddhist theory of ~nyatd constitutes the most radical and rigorous
conception, elaborated in India, of an Absolute in all the fullness of the word,
without any concession to the religious feelings of man or to his religious
needs. Brahman, the Absolute imagined by the Veddnta, in the most disputed
form which gives us the non-dualistic Veddnta, admits in itself the notions of
'being', 'consciousness', 'blissfulness', and even of 'divine' and 'sacred', as it
is shown by its easy transformation into the Lord, under which form it
manifests itself. Not a single one of these notions is included in N~g~rjuna's
conception of &2nyatd.12
With its conception of a &~nyatd, deprived of all deifying or sacred elements,
the Mddhyamika school does not separate itself from the initial tendency of
primitive Buddhism, according to which the divine and sacred are completely
strange to the Absolute (nirvd.na) and hierarchically inferior to it. Buddhism,
in this sense, approaches the non-theist Sdmkhya, which considers that the
purusa (individual spiritual principle), the only Absolute that this school
accepts, has nothing in itself of divinity.
While constructing its notion of kanyatd, N~g~irjuna reveals not only a
remarkable intellectual rigor, as he presents the ~nyatd deprived of an3(
element that does not accord with the most extreme abstraction, but also
reveals a not less remarkable audacity. His abolishing analysis of the empirical
reality does not limit itself to the common beings and things of the w o r d ; it
attacks also, with the same severity, the most valuable and respectable beliefs
and doctrines of the Buddhist Church, to which he and his school belong.
With the same implacable logic and in the same way in which N~g~rjuna
denies movement, birth and destruction etc. he denies also Buddha's person,
his teachings, the action that enchains to the reincarnations' cycle, the
reincarnations themselves and the liberation (mok.sa).
The Mddhyamika school represents the extreme degree of rationality in
lndian thought. If it is true that the initial movement in its speculations is
due to the texts attributed to the Buddha and that the school utilizes these
texts, which have a canonical authority, in order to corroborate its theories,
nevertheless the Mddhyamika school utilizes preferably the analysis of the
empirical reality and rational argumentation in order to establish them; and
among the forms of argumentation, its preference goes decidedly to an
extreme form of logical argumentation, the reductio ad absurdum. Without
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NOTES
1 Regarding theM~dhyamika school see: E. Conze,Buddhist Thought in lndia, London:
G. Allen and Unwin, 1962, Thirty years of Buddhist Studies, London: O. Cassirer, 1967;
J. W. de Jong, Cinq Chapitres de laPrasannapadd, Introduction, Paris: P. Geuthner,
1949, 'Le Probl~me de l'Absolu darts l'l~cole M~dhyamaka', Revue Philosophique de la
France et de l'l~tranger CXL, 1950, pp. 323-327, 'Emptiness', Journal of Indian
Philosophy 2, 1972, pp. 7-15; L. de la Vall6e Poussin, 'Madhyamaka', Mklanges chinois
et bouddhiques 2, 1932-1933, pp. 1-146, 'Buddhica', Harvard Journal of Asian Studies
III, 1938, pp. 146-158, 'Note sur les Corps du Bouddha', LeMusbon, 1913, pp. 269272; N. Dutt, 'The Place of the ~tryasatyas and Pratity~samutp5da in Hinay~na and
Mah~y~na',Annals o f the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, Vol. XI,
January 1930, Part II, pp. 101-127; V. Fatone, El Budismo 'nihilista', Obras Completas
II, Buenos Aires: Sudamedcana, 1972, pp. 16-156; E. FrauwaUner, Die Philosophie des
Buddhismus, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1969; L. O. GSmez Rodrlguez, 'Consideraciones
en Torno al Absoluto de los Budistas', Estudios deAsia y Africa, VoI.'X, No. 2, 1975,
pp. 97-154; E. Lamotte, L 'enseignement de Vimalak~rti, Introduction, Louvain: Le
Mus6on, 1962, Le Trait~ de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse de Ndgdr]una, Louvain: Institut
Orientaliste de Louvain, 1976, Tome IV, pp. 1995-2042; Bimal K. Matilal, Epistemology,
Logic and Gramm~ in Indian Philosophical Analysis, The Hague: Mouton, 1971, pp.
146-167; J. May, Candrak~rtiPrasannapaddMadhyamakavrtti, Introduction, Pads:
Maisonneuve, 1959, "Kant et le Madhyamaka, Apropos d'un Livre R6cent', Indo-Iranian
Journal 3, 1959, pp. 102-111, 'La Philosophie Bouddhique de la Vacuit6", Studia
Philosophica (Basle) 18, 1958, pp. 123-137; T. R. V. Murti, The CentralPhilosophy of
Buddhism, London: Allen and Unwin, 1960; R. Panikkar, 'The 'Crisis' of M~dhyamika
and Indian Philosophy', Philosophy East and West, Vol. XVI, Nos. 3 and 4, JulyOctober, 1966; I. Quiles, 'El Absoluto Budista como 'Vac~o' (Sunya), segtln Nagarjuna',
Stromata 22, 1966, p. 3-24; K. Venkata Ramanan,Ndgt~r/una'sPhilosophy, Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1975; R. H. Robinson, Early M~dhyamika in India and China,
Madison: Wisconsin University, 1967, 'Some Logicals Aspects of N~g~rjuna's System',
Philosophy East and West 6, 1957, pp. 291-308; St. Schayer,Ausgewiihlte Kapitel aus der
Prasannapad~, KrakSw: Polska Akademja Umiejetno~ci, Prace Komisji Orjentalistycznej
No. 14, 1931, 'Das mah~iySnistischeAbsolutum nach der Lehre der M~dhyamikas',
Orientalischer Literaturzeitung XXXVIII/7, Juli, 1935, pp. 401-415; Yamakami S6gen,
Systems of Buddhistic Though t, Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1912, pp. 186-209;
Th. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvd.na, The Hague: Mouton and Co.,
1965, "Die drei Richtungen in der Philosophie des Buddhismus', Rocznik Or]entalistyczny
10, 1934, pp. 1-37, Madhydnta Vibhanga, Introduction, Calcutta: Indian Studies, 1971;
N.g, G A R J U N A ' S
CONCEPTION
OF 'VOIDNESS'
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Catuhgataka.
a For this reason the word ~nyatd which, as well shall see later on, serves to designate
the true reality, covered or concealed by the empirical reality, has many times the
meaning of svabhdva~2nyat& "voidness (= lack) o f an own being (= substantiality)".
4 The M~dhyamika school was called sceptical by its rivals, because it refrained itself
from emitting own judgements. This suspension of judgement was a consequence o f
the conviction that the school has that any thesis, when it is duly analyzed, falls into
contradictions and that the true reality cannot be reached by human reason.
s See our article 'The Hastavt~lant~maprakara.navrtti o f ,~ryadeva or Dign~ga', which
be published in The Journal of Religious Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala, India,
December, 1980, Vol. VIII, No. 1.
6 The non-dualist Veddnta starts from the affirmation of Brahman and finishes denying
the world's real existence. Cf. G. Dandoy (1932). The Mddhyamika school's thought
follows the inverse road: it begins denying the world and as a result finds the true
reality.
7 For this reason N~g~rjuna's school calls itself 'Mddhyamika', "of the middle", because
it is equally far from being and not being. It is why it repels vehemently the qualification
of 'nihilist' that its rivals bestowed on it.
8 It seems to us that it is impossible to discuss if the true reality is transcendent or
immanent in the empirical reality, because both are the same thing. The empirical reality
is nothing else than the true reality wrongly perceived. It is also not possible to say that
Ngggajuna's system is a monist one, because the true reality is not an entity that
functions as basis, fundament or essence of another reality, the empirical reality.
9 We must n o t forget that the word prat~tyasamutp~da as a designation of the true
reality is only a metaphor as well as the word ~inyatd because, if in the true reality
there is neither generation nor destruction, it is not possible to speak at the level o f
'conditionality' or 'relativity'. The prat~tyasamutpdda is void as any other manifestation
o f the true reafity.
10 The impossibility of deifying and sacralizing the true reality as conceived by the
Mddhyamika school becomes fully evident if we think that the true reality is nothing
else than the pratftyasamutpdda, the universal relativity.
11 The majority o f the authors mentioned in the first note designates the ~nyatd with
the word 'Absolute' and propends to monistic, religious and mystical conceptions o f it.
12 O. Lacombe (1937, p. 216), proposes to translate 'Brahman" by 'sacred'.
REFERENCES
Dandoy G. (1932), L 'Ontologie du Vedanta. Essai sur l'Acosmisme de l'Advaita, Paris:
Descl6e de Brouwer et Cie.
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