FERNANDO TOLA AND CARMEN DRAGONETTI

NAG, ~ R JUNA'S CONCEPTION OF 'VOIDNESS ' (SUNYATA)

THE DENIAL OF THE EMPIRICAL REALITY

The philosophical school Madhyamaka 1 of Mahgygna Buddhism denies the true existence of the empirical reality in its totality. For this school the empirical reality includes all the beings and things, whatever is an object of human experience and knowledge, that same experience and knowledge, their products without any exception. The empirical reality is only an appearance, a phenomenon, which lacks a true existence, which is like a dream, a mirage, an illusion created by magic.

The great majority of the kdrikds of the Madhyamakagdstra composed by Nagarjuna (2 d century A.D.), the founder of Mddhyamika school, is destinated to deny the real existence of the principal manifestations and categories of the empirical reality: birth and destruction, causality, time, the sensorial activity, the elements that constitute man (dharma), passion and its subject, action and its agent, suffering, the consequences of actions (karman), the reincarnations cycle, the ego, Buddha, the saving truths taught by Buddha, the liberation from the reincarnations cycle (mok.sa), being and not being etc. In the same way great part of the intellectual activity of NfigLrjuna's school had an identical aim. 2

The empirical reality is designated by the Mgdhyamika school with the name 'envelopment reality' or 'concealment reality' (samv.rtisatya). This is an appropriate term because, according to the mddhyamika conception, the empirical reality effectively envelops, conceals the true reality (param~rthasatya).

PRATiTYASAMUTPADA, DEPENDENT ORIGINATION, UNIVERSAL RELATIVITY

N~ggrjuna affirms the non-existence of the empirical reality, because there is nothing in it that exists in se e tper se, nothing has an own being (svabhdva); 3 every thing in it is conditional, relative, dependent, composed. The

Journal of Indian Philosophy 9 (1981) 273-282. 0022-1791/81/0093-0273 $01.00. Copyright © 1981 by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.

274 F. TOLA AND C. DRAGONETTI

conditionality, relativity, dependence, and the fact of being composed,

constitute the true nature, the authentic form of being of the empirical reality. The term "pratityasamutpdda', which literally means 'dependent origination' and which Stcherbatsky (1927, passim) translates pertinently by 'universal

relativity', designates that nature, that form of being. And it is this essential

nature which allows, as we have already said, the negation of the empirical reality by the dialectic of N~g~rjuna's school. If the empirical reality were composed of substances or if an ultimate substance were its essence and

foundation, the abolishing analysis, practised by the McMhyamika school, would stop, frustrated, before that unshakeable basis. The true form of being of the empirical reality is not perceived by us or it is only partially perceived. The empirical reality appears to us under a form which it does not possess, as something permanent, compact, unitary, substantial etc., because of the special constitution of our mind and senses, of our subjectivity. This erroneous

perception of the empirical reality conceals from us its authentic nature as the erroneous perception of a snake superimposed on a rope conceals from us the

true nature of the object that is truly before us. As we shall see later on, the true nature of the empirical reality is the paramdrthasatya and the erroneous appearance under which the empirical reality appears to us is the samvrtisatya.

DEMONSTRATION OF THE M/~DHYAMIKA THESIS

The Mddhyamika school does not affirm the universal relativity and does not

deny the real existence of the world in a do~-natic way. It has to establish and demonstrate its thesis against other philosophical and religious, Buddhist and

non Buddhist schools, which adopt realistic and absolutist positions. This demonstration is carried on in different ways.

The school adduces, of course, the texts that contain the Buddha's teaching

(dgama), which duly interpreted can serve as a basis for its thesis. For the Buddhist schools these texts contain the truth, but only for them and consequently cannot be adduced against the thesis of non Buddhist people.

Besides the above, the school uses reasoning, logical argumentation (yukti). The arguments developped by the Mddhyamika thinkers to defend their own negative conceptions and to destroy contrary thesis are contained specially in the great commentaries that accompany the works of N~g~rjuna and of the other masters that followed him. Among those commentaries it is necessary to mention the most valuable commentary of Candrakfrti on N~g~rjuna's

N,~G.~RJUNA'S CONCEPTION OF 'VOIDNESS' 275

Madhyamaka~dstra. This commentary reveals the parallel use of Buddha's word and logic. Generally the great masters of the Mddhyamika school, like Aryadeva, Buddhap~lita, Candrakfrti, S~ntideva, Prajfig.karamati, faithful to the founder, adopt the prdsahgika or reductio ad absurdum method: 4 they do not adduce arguments of their own invention; they limit themselves to show the contradictory and absurd consequences that derive from the thesis and arguments of the rival schools. For instance, if one of these schools affirms the real origination of beings and things, the mddhyamika will indicate that, in that case, origination should be either out of oneself or out of another or out of oneself and of another or without any cause, and will show that all these alternatives are logically impossible, employing for that aim, as basic principles of his own argumentation, the adversary's own

principles. Finally, the Mddhyarnika school utilizes the analysis of the empirical

reality in order to get results which destroy the rival doctrines and which found its own conception of the world. The treatise Hastavdlandmaprakarana, kdrikds and commentary,s give us an example of this procedure. The author investigates the empirical reality and finds that it is composed only by entities

which, on being analyzed at their turn, happen to be mere appearances, which cover or conceal other entities, which happen to be also mere appearances which cover or conceal other entities and so on. This analysis reaches the conclusion that it is impossible to find something substantial, permanent and irreducible, in which one could stop and establish oneself. The thesis of the real existence of the world becomes in this way untenable and the place becomes free for the Mddhyamika conception of the illusory character of the world.

NECESSITY OF USING THE EMPIRICAL LANGUAGE IN ORDER TO EXPRESS THE TRUE REALITY

Now we must speak about the true reality which, as we have already said, is covered or concealed by the empirical reality. But we must indicate before that the true reality is something completely different from the empirical reality, completely outside the pale of human word and thought, absolutely 'heterogeneous'. Nevertheless, in order to speak about the true reality, man is obliged to employ human language, which is something that belongs only to the empirical reality. And the true reality, when it is expressed in words

276 F. TOLA AND C. DRAGONETTI

and ideas, presents itself under a deformed image, because it is submitted necessarily to the categories of space, time, cause, existence, non existence, unity, multiplicity etc. that belong to the empirical reality and have nothing to do with the true reality. It is necessary to have always before mind this unavoidable deformation of the true reality, as it is understood by N~ig~irjuna, when we speak about it.

THE TRUE REALITY COMES FORTH THROUGH THE ABOLITION OF

THE EMPIRICAL ONE

As a consequence of their argumentation and analysis, the Mddhyamikas deny the existence of the empirical reality, of all its manifestations, of all the elements that constitute it, of all the categories that manifest themselves in it, of all the characteristics which are proper to it, and they assign to everything that belongs to this empirical reality only an apparent, phantasmagoric, inconsistent existence.

As a result of the abolishing process realized by Nfig~rjuna's school, there remains (we are obliged to say) 'something' completely different from the empirical reality as it presents itself to us, and deprived of all the empirical manifestations, elements, categories and characteristics. 6 We must emphazise, in a special way, the fact that this (so called) 'something', that remains after the abolishing analysis, is outside the concepts of being and not being, that it is impossible to affirm, in relation to it, that it exists or does not exist. 7

I f somebody attributes to this 'something' any characteristic that belongs to the empirical reality, Nfigfirjuna's disciple would apply the same destructive dialectic that he applied before, in an analytical and abolishing process which never finds an ultimate, autonomous reality, truly existing.

That 'something' that remains as a 'residue' of the total negation of the empirical reality, in which there is nothing that belongs to the empirical reality, and which cannot be either grasped by the mind or expressed by the word - that 'something' is the true reality. 8

RELATION BETWEEN THE EMPIRICAL REALITY AND THE TRUE REALITY

The true reality is nothing else than the true nature of the empirical reality, as we have said before. To find the true nature of the empirical reality we

NAGARJUNA'S CONCEPTION OF 'VOIDNESS' 277

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.

SI~INYAT~., VOIDNESS, SI]NYA, VOID, AS DENOMINATIONS OF THE TRUE REALITY

To designate the true reality the M~dhyamika school employs preferably the

words 'kanyata ~, voidness, 'kanya', void. They are simply metaphors, perhaps the most appropriate to indicate the 'residue' that remains after the

abolition of the empirical reality - a 'residue' that neither is nor is not and referring to which nothing can be thought, nothing can be said.

PRATITYASAMUTP.~DA AS A DENOMINATION OF THE TRUE REALITY

The term 'pratftyasamutpdda', Universal Relativity, which expresses, as we have indicated before, the authentic nature of the empirical reality, is also

employed to designate the true reality. This use of the word is right because,

as we have seen, the true reality and the true nature o f the empirical reality are just the same thing. 9

SUNYAT,~ AND THE DIVINE AND SACRED

We have said that is not possible to affirm with respect to ganyatd that it

exists or does not exist. It is equally important to have always present that in

the kanyatd there is no place for the deifying and sacralizing elements. The ~anyatd refuses the notions of 'divine' and sacred', because they are notions that belong exclusively to the empirical reality, as it refuses other notions

that belong to the same level. 1° But that does not mean at all that the divine and sacred are absent from Mah~y~na Buddhism; the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are, we can say, their receptacles.

278 F. TOLA AND C. DRAGONETTI

'ABSOLUTE' AS A DENOMINATION OF THE TRUE REALITY

One of the causes which contributes the most to render difficult the under- standing of the kanyata-'s theory, is the use of the word 'Absolute' to designate

it. n Rigorously it is licit to designate the kOnyatd with 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 EXPERIENCE OF SUNYAT.A IN THE YOGIC TRANCE

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.na etc. 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 ~dnyatd presents no divine or sacred element, in

the same way we must consider that the experience o f the ~anyatd that the Buddhist monk 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.

N,~GARJUNA'S CONCEPTION OF 'VOIDNESS' 279

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 word; 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. I f 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

280 F. TOLA AND C. DRAGONETTI

raising any principle to the rank of an a priori postulate, the Mddhyamika

masters refute the rival thesis utilizing only the principles upon which these

rival thesis are built, putt ing them in contradiction with themselves, in order

to leave, as a last result, the total and absolute voidness.

University o f Buenos Aires, Argentina

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. 269- 272; N. Dutt, 'The Place of the ~tryasatyas and Pratity~samutp5da in Hinay~na and Mah~y~na', Annals of 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, July- October, 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~iySnistische Absolutum 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 C O N C E P T I O N OF ' V O I D N E S S ' 281

F. J. Streng, Emptiness. Study in Religious Meaning, Nashville, New York: Abingdon Press, 1967; Junjir6 Takakusu, The essentials o f Buddhist Philosophy, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975; E. J. Thomas, The History o f Buddhist Thought, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963; P. Tuxen, 'In what sense can we call the Teaching of N~g~rjuna Negativism?', Journal o f Oriental Research 11, Madras, 1937, pp. 231 -242 ; P. L. Vaidya, Etudes sur.4ryadeva et son Catuh. s'ataka, Paris: P. Geuthner, 1923; A. Wayman, 'Contributions to the M~dhyamika School of Buddhism', Journal o f the American OrientalSociety, Vol. 89, No. 1, 1969, pp. 141-152 . 2 For instance see Nhg~rjuna's Dvdda~advgra and ~ryadeva's Satagdstra and 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) of an own being (= substantiality)". 4 The M~dhyamika school was called sceptical by its rivals, because it refrained itself f rom emitting own judgements. This suspension of judgement was a consequence of 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 of ,~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 enti ty that functions as basis, fundament or essence of another reality, the empirical reality. 9 We must no 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 'conditionali ty ' or 'relativity'. The prat~tyasamutpdda is void as any other manifestation of 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 of the authors ment ioned in the first note designates the ~nyatd with the word 'Absolute ' and propends to monistic, religious and mystical conceptions of it. 12 O. Lacombe (1937, p. 216), proposes to translate 'Brahman" by 'sacred'.

R E F E R E N C E S

Dandoy G. (1932), L 'Ontologie du Vedanta. Essai sur l'Acosmisme de l'Advaita, Paris: Descl6e de Brouwer et Cie.

282 F. TOLA AND C. DRAGONETTI

Lacombe, 0. (1937), L 'Absolu selon le Vbdffnta. Les Notions de Brahman et d'Atman dans les Systbnes de ~ankara et Rdmdnoudja, Paris: P. Geuthner, 1966, Annales du Mus~e Guimet, Tome Quarante-neuvi~me.

Stcherbatsky, Th. (1927), The Conception o f BuddhistNirvd.na, The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1965, Indo-Iranian Reprints, VI.