FERNANDO TOLA AND CARMEN DRAGONETTI

N A G , ~ 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 ' (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 t p e r 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.

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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

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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

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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
If 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

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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.

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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 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 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.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.

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 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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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, putting 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. 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;

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CONCEPTION

OF 'VOIDNESS'

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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. 2 3 1 - 2 4 2 ; P. L.
Vaidya, Etudes sur.4ryadeva et son Catuh.s'ataka, Paris: P. Geuthner, 1923; A. Wayman,
'Contributions to the M~dhyamika School o f Buddhism', Journal o f the American
OrientalSociety, Vol. 89, No. 1, 1969, pp. 1 4 1 - 1 5 2 .
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) 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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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.