The nature and function of Naagaarjunas arguments

·期刊原文
The nature and function of Naagaarjuna's arguments
By Richard Hubert Jones
Philosophy East & West
V. 28:4 (1978.10)
pp. 485-502
Copyright 1978 by University of Hawaii Press
Hawaii, USA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Hubert Jones is a doctoral student in the Department of Religion at Columbia University.

p. 485

This article sets out to provide on overview of Naagaarjuna's reasoning in order to understand the many claims in the Muulamadhyamakakaarikaas, [1] the Vigrahavyaavartanii (VV), and the Ratnaavalii (R), which seem on the surface to be rather odd. For instance, if fire is different from kindling, it would exist without kindling; or, one who moves cannot rest. What will be maintained here is that such claims are logical in the context of Naagaarjuna's way of arguing and that the arguments make sense only if the premises and definitions he employs are adhered to strictly.

Naagaarjuna's Religious Purpose
Naagaarjuna's work is not a mere philosophical analysis, but has a soteriological intention. His opponents, he feels, take language to be reflective of the nature of the world so that if we have a word for something, it must exist (VV 9). Such entities (bhaava) we take to be real (that is, independent of other entities), and we crave them. But for Naagaarjuna, these targets for attachment are no more than reifications of our own fabrications (sa.mkalpa) abstracted out of the arising and falling of experience. Since we react to them, fabrications are the source of the three roots of unskillfulness (greed, hatred, and delusion, 23.1). To become freed from suffering, the mental props must be undermined. By ending, or "pacifying" (upa`sama), our conceptual proliferation (prapa~nca), defilements and motivated action (karman) cease (18.5). Voidness (`suunyataa) serves precisely this function in the religious quest (22. 11). His analysis attempts to show that what our terms denote lack what is essential for them to be considered real and desirable. The result would be that we would see that entities are not independent and consist of nothing to which to become attached. In this vein, Naagaarjuna speaks of the peaceful cessation of conceptual proliferation (25.24) and of the Buddha seeing no real entities nor speaking any words (establishing the existence of real entities) in expounding the Dharma. Elsewhere he states that those who see entities, or the absence of entities, or own-nature, or other-nature do not see the Buddha's teachings (15.6). In fact, for Naagaarjuna nirvaa.na simply is the suppression of any notion of real entities or their absence (abhaava) (R 1.42). [2] According to Candrakiirti, nirvaa.na is the quiescence of all conceptual proliferation (ni.sprapa~nca sarvaprapa~nca). [3] AAryadeva probably means the same when he refers to nirvaa.na as the extinction of all words. [4]

Naagaarjuna's method
To introduce the peculiarities of how Naagaarjuna goes about his task, consider his claim to expound no views (d.r.s.ti) -- one who holds voidness, the remedy of all views, as a view is incurable (13.8). Of course by any commonsensical definition of "view," he has many, starting with the first verse of the Kaarikaas.

p. 486

But he asserts that he has none (27.30), not simply a lack of wrong ones. Or, he proposes that where all is void there can be no propositions (pratij~na: VV 29); this is so because, if voidness were usable in an argument (4.9), it would be made into a thesis, and if voidness were a thesis, its antithesis (non-voidness) would be derivable from it (R 2.4).

Naagaarjuna's claim becomes understandable once one realizes that the notion of views is always connected with the eternality or annihilation of real entities (15.10; 21.14; 24.21 .27.1-2. 13-14, 29-30; R 1.43-46) and as voidness neither "is" nor "is not" (22.11), by definition it cannot be associated with any view. This may seem an odd way to get out of a problem, but as will be seen, many of Naagaarjuna's arguments follow the same pattern: first giving a very narrow definition to a term and then showing his position does not fall into that category. Thus, by his definitions, Naagaarjuna is in a position of maintaining that he has no positions and of stating such prima facie strange remarks as merely "making known" the unreality of things without affirming or denying them (since there is nothing real to affirm or deny). Furthermore, affirming or denying causes the state of affairs in question to come about (VV 64) by the rule that if there is a word for something, it exists. He asserts "We have already established [in detail] the voidness of all things" (VV 59), while in the commentary upon the verse remarks "... your criticism is directed against something which is not a proposition." Voidness is not a "right view." It is right in a broad sense, but not a view in his usage of the term.

His method is not to advance a thesis and to adduce supporting reasons but to show that no other position can be maintained which accepts the premises he ascribes to his opponents. By this means he can knock down one position without establishing its opposite in the process. Two such premises are "To exist an entity must be eternal" and "Real things cannot affect other things." He proceeds to show either that they conflict with ordinary sense-experience -- as in the appeal to observation (for example, 13.3), [5] or to seeing the removal of perception (VV 67), or to seeing that the world does not vanish or remain immutably (R 1.63) -- or that they are inconsistent. Thus, both logical and ordinary empirical arguments are made with no appeal to meditative experience or specifically Buddhist doctrine. The arguments therefore rest on grounds easily intelligible to Westerners.

His basic argument for establishing the nonarising of all entities through own-nature relies on this reasoning: if a statement is a real entity (the commentary clarifies that only the voidness of statements is established first and that then the same method applies to all things), it is either identical or absolutely different from its causes and conditions (VV 21). Furthermore, a statement is not independent of its conditions, and. if it were in the totality of causes and conditions, it could be grasped there. In experience, however, it is not so grasped (20.3). Hence, entities and their causes are all void of own-nature.

Although logic (theories of deductions or valid inferences involving the

p. 487

forms of statements) is never explicitly dealt with. From inferences repeatedly made in the Kaarikaas the forms employed can be abstracted. For example, if paraphrasing questions as statements is permissible, verse 19.6 ("If time depends on an entity, how can there be time without an entity? And no entity whatsoever exists -- how could there be time?") could be arranged to show its formal validity: [6]

(1) If there is time, then some entity exists.
(2) Thus, if there is no entity, there is no time.
(3) There are no entities whatsoever.
(4) Therefore, there is no time.

(1) is a restatement of "time depends on an entity," (2) of the entire first question, and (3) and (4) of the next two clauses. (2) follows from (1); (4) is entailed by (2) and (3).

Naagaarjuna's argumentation appears to involve the basic ways of reasoning found in the West. Inferences such as the one preceding occur throughout the Kaarikaas. Dichotomies between p and not-p are central in every chapter; and Naagaarjuna's arguments are designed to exhaust all the possibilities he sees open to his opponent. In 2.8, 14 it is asked explicitly what third alternative there is between a mover and a nonmover. An instance of this third alternative used implicitly is 3.6: "No seer exists apart from seeing nor not apart from seeing: there being no seer..." -- a seer can exist only either apart from seeing or not. This same procedure recurs frequently (For example, 1.4, 4.6, 6.10, 8.1). Similarly, he states p and not-p cannot occur together (7.30, 8.7, 25.14) as they are contradictory. Naagaarjuna appears consistent in his usage of the logical laws of noncontradiction and excluded middle throughout.

This being so, there seems to be little justification for maintaining that Naagaarjuna denies either the law of noncontradiction or the law of the excluded middle or that somehow he is "using logic to destroy logic," since such reasoning is how he establishes the voidness of entities, and so forth. He merely ascribes a set of premises to those who use "is" or "is not" and proceeds logically, remaining on the logical or empirical levels.

Robinson cites what he considers a logical dilemma: [7]

If a cause is void of a result, how can it produce the result? If a cause is not void of a result, how can it produce the result? (20.16)

This, says Robinson, has the form, "if p, then q, if not-p, then q," where p stands for the cause being void of the result and q for the inability to produce a result; q would be established quite trivially. [8] But looking at 1.6, one sees Naagaarjuna means something more substantial:

There is no condition either of an unreal (asat) or a real (sat) thing. Of what is unreal, is there a condition? If it is real, how can it be so through the condition?

Conditions cannot produce something unreal because that thing does not

p. 488

exist (that is, no thing is produced) nor something real because the real is unproducable; if "unreal" means a change in a nonvoid entity, still conditions cannot bring this about (24.33). The sense is similar to 2.24, which states that both a really existing (sadbhuuta) mover does not move (since the real cannot change) and a not really existing (asadbhuuta) mover also does not move (since there is no thing real to move). Thus, 20.16 can be paraphrased nontrivially as:

If the cause is void of the result, how can the real cause produce a real effect through a causal connection? If the cause is not void of the result, how can there be a change in a real cause necessary to produce a real, independent effect?

If the cause and result are both real, they are independent and cannot be causally related. If the cause is not devoid of the result, then either the result is not real (and thus no thing is produced), or it is within the conditions and causes (VV 21) and thereby not produced. The first sentence concerns the process of producing (if entities exist via own-nature, the process is not possible) and the second with the result (if the process is possible, no real entities can enter into it); the phrase "how can it produce the result" likewise is concerned with both. In any case, no real result is produced nor is any real referent involved. [9] Under either interpretation the process and concepts involved are seen to be fabrications corresponding to nothing real. This is a paradigm of Naagaarjuna's argumentation and other verses with the same form can be dealt with in the same manner.

Basic Terms
To arrive at the implicit premises he feels his opponents hold, our next step is to see the characteristics of the basic terms involved:

Svabhaava: own-nature, self-existence, intrinsic nature, self-generating, self-maintaining, existence by reason of itself. From Chapter 24, what exists by means of own-nature is permanent, fixed, unproduced, unstopped, and unchanging (kuu.tastha); elsewhere it is said to be independent and not derived (15.2) and uneliminatable (22.24). Unlike the Buddhist logicians for whom efficiency is the criterion for existence, for Naagaarjuna only entities with own-nature exist or are real (sat, sadbhuuta). A real entity is in the causes and conditions or totally independent of them (VV 21).

Parabhaava: other-existence, existence by reason of or from another. An entity existing by means of other-nature relies for its existence on the own-nature of some other real thing. In this way, other-existence must rely upon some self-existence: other-existence means the own-nature of the other-existence (15.3), and if there is no own-nature, other-existence is not possible (1.3, 15.3, 22.9).

Anyathaabhaava: otherwise-nature, for example, milk existing as curds (13.6). Since, for Naagaarjuna, only real entities can become otherwise and real entities cannot change, he easily disposes of this concept in Chapter 13 (but only after

p. 489

he has made sure the meanings of other concepts are interconnected with this one).

Sahabhaava: joint-entity of two real entities.

Bhaava: an entity. An entity lacking own-nature is not real or existent (sattaa, 1.10; asti, 13.3).

Abhaava: the otherwise-existence of an entity (15.5), the absence of an entity. If there are no real entities, then, of course, there are no entities to be absent (25.7) -- something must exist to be absent or negated.

`Suunyataa: emptiness, voidness. What is lacking own-nature and is dependently originated is indicated by "voidness" (24.18). Every entity is void and thereby not real but is like a dream or a magical illusion. Since it is not a real entity itself (but is itself void), voidness cannot be said to exist or not exist. The concept of voidness is employed only for informing us of the fabricated nature of our fabrications (22.11); it cannot be used for refuting (4.8) since it is the conclusion, not a premise.

It is extremely important to note that even "is" (asti) and "is not" (naasti) are technical terms for him, as becomes clear from 15.10-11: "Is" refers only to what exists through own-nature -- only to what would be real for Naagaarjuna. "Is not" is the notion of annihilationism (uccheda), the destruction of the real. "Is not" does not designate what does not exist by own-nature. Nor does the phrase refer to what is totally nonexistent such as a hare's horn or a square circle. Candrakiirti affirms that the phrase "son of a barren woman" are "mere words" corresponding to nothing in reality that could be an entity or the absence of one; denying such sons involves no real negation because it is "a mere denial of the possibility to imagine them as real." [10]

"Is" and "is not" are thus interconnected terms -- is-not-ness cannot occur without there first being is-ness (R 1.72). These terms are the only terms that can designate real ontological status. [11] "There is nirvaa.na lacking own-nature" (asvabhaavo nirvaa.nam asti) would be a contradiction in terms for Naagaarjuna. What is void of own-nature neither "is" nor is absolutely unreal (like a hare's horns). Once this is understood, saying that what exists through voidness neither "is" nor "is not" is not so much paradoxical as Naagaarjuna's code for saying merely the entity neither has own-nature nor is the result of the destruction of own-nature: it is an unqualified denial of eternalism and annihilationism and that entities are real in this sense. Since own-nature is the criterion for being real for him, this is reasonable. In this sense, those who see is-ness and is-not-ness do not see the cessation of the seeable (5.8). Nothing concerning three-valued logic is being introduced since "is" and "is not" are not mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories. Instead they are restricted to denoting only what exists by means of own-nature. Dependent origination (pratiityasamutpaada) is outside the realm of own-nature and thus is outside the realm of existence (is-ness and is-not-ness) of entities; it is the "middle way" between "is" and "is not" (R 1.67).

p. 490

Naagaarjuna thus substitutes talk of dependent arising of entities in the place of talk of existence ("is" and "is not" in his sense). All elements of experience (dharmas) are like dreams or mirages (23.5); no dharma -- no object, not the tathaagata nor anything else we can imagine -- arises nondependently. The question of self-existence versus dependent arising occurs only within the framework of both the existence and arising of entities -- it is these fabrications that are devoid of intrinsic nature. [12] Own-nature deals only with what would make entities real. Own-nature and voidness are never indicated as having any meaning outside this context. Once the subject shifts away from questions related to entities, Naagaarjuna does speak of reality (tattva, not astitaa): reality is nondependent, stilled, free of diffuse-ness by means of conceptualizations (prapa~ncair aprapan~citam), free of our fabrications and undifferentiated (18.9). There is no mention of reality existing by own-nature since it is not an entity.

Relationships
Besides these important distinctions among terms, the arguments in the Kaarikaas succeed only if a very restricted range of relations which Naagaarjuna believes entities with own-nature are able to undergo is understood.

First, nothing can be done to something existing through own-nature; for example, it cannot be created (24.33), eliminated (23.24, VV 67), or attained (24.39). A person with demerit would never be able to remove this demerit and thus would be permanently in that state. Images in the mind or perceptions would be forever before the mind. There could be no real actions (17.21-22): if an action lacks own-nature, it is not real and if it has own-nature, it does not occur (that is, it is eternal and thus never is completed). Besides being unaffectable, real entities cannot affect other things. Thus an actually existent actor can neither do an actually existent action (because it too is real) nor do a not actually existent action (since it is unreal). There is no activity of a real entity; the actor and action would exist independently (8.1-2). Cause/effect is obviously among the proscribed relationships.

He sees his opponents as advocating a Humean world of loose and separate real entities (confer 1.9 against continuity [santaana]). The only possible relations between real things are identity and absolute unrelatedness (for example, 2.21, 6.5, 18.10, VV 21). If nirvaa.na and sa.msaara were real, they would be totally unrelated and thereby enlightenment would be impossible. Difference for Naagaarjuna requires things existing through own-nature. If there are no such entities, there is no true difference. The consequent of the conditional of 20.4 makes sense only if one thinks in terms of unrelatable real entities: "If the effect is not in the complete collection of cause and conditions, the causes and conditions would be the same as non-causes and non-conditions." If the result is not in the cause and conditions, it is not related to them at all. Similarly, if fire is not identical (ekatva) to fuel, it is distinct and thus exists without fuel (10.1); the same with a mover and motion (2.20), and so forth. A remark by

p. 491

AAryadeva which seems at least odd is correct from the standpoint of this way of reasoning: "If the whole and the parts are not different, the head must be the foot, because both of these thing would not be different from the elephant." [13]

Behind this view seems to be the idea that an entity existing through own-nature is analogous to a physical object. Thus light is seen as coming into contact with darkness, light destroying darkness, and darkness covering itself (7.9-12). Darkness is not mere absence of light but an object present when light is absent. If present and future are dependent upon the past, for Naagaarjuna they must be things back there with the past (19.1-2). Action, motion, passion, and so on become reified things distinct from persons.

Own-nature might be for him a reified property controlling its entity. For example, if a perception constituting a mirage exists through own-nature, it would be irremovable (VV 67); if own-nature were merely the essential property making perception, then a perception could be removed without destroying its essential property. But if this essential property is itself an object in its own right then the perception (the entity with own-nature) would be irremovable. The reified property would be the controlling factor. Thus 5.2 can state that there is no entity without a mark (lak.sa.na), and then turn around to ask if this is so, where can the mark apply? The mark is reified into an entity distinct from the mark's entity. In this way, it is not applicable to that which is the unity of an entity and its mark.

What lacks own-nature cannot be related in ways entities with own-nature must be. Thus if nirvaa.na and sa.msaara lack own-nature, they are neither different nor identical -- they are not the type of things which can be related in these ways. Verses 25.19-20 assert only that there is absolutely no difference between nirvaa.na and sa.msaara. This does not entail their identity, however, since only the real have properties which can be different or the same. [14] To put it another way, because the world (loka) and nirvaa.na are equally nonexistent, how can the difference between them be real (R 1.64)? The case is the same with the "I" of present and past births (27.9). This pattern is transformed into arguments throughout the Kaarikaas: If the oneness of two entities (for example, cause and product, 20.19) or their absolute difference is not possible, they are void of own-nature and thus not real.

Another variety of relationship employed in arguing is the interconnection of terms denoting real entities. One group consists of such terms as "bhaava" and "abhaava" whose definitions overlap.

A second group is created by the fact language denoting objects operates by making distinctions (if there is not something other than light, then the word "light" would have no meaning), and hence, for Naagaarjuna if an entity does not exist through own-nature then neither does its opposite (if "light" is meaningless, then the question of light versus darkness is senseless). If the self (aatman) is not found, then neither is the nonself since "nonself" would

p. 492

be without meaning; the same is true with the other wayward views (23.22) and even with void and nonvoid entities (13.7). Plurality and unity (R 1.17), long and short (R 1.48), and other contrasting pairs are dealt with in the same manner. The claim in 2.15 that a mover (gant.r) and a nonmover do not rest reflects this: A real mover does not exist apart from motion (2.9) and therefore there is no real ex-mover to rest, and a nonmover never moved and so cannot stop moving to rest. [15]

A third group is based upon reified properties seen as real entities. Previously pointed out were examples of separating persons and their properties or actions into distinct entities which can be neither identical nor unrelated (and thus not real). Here the problem revolves around an entity gaining a new property or description. For instance, [16] when a man has a child, he gains a new property -- that of fatherhood -- but the man himself is not physically dependent upon the child (obviously). But Naagaarjuna would see this process in a rather odd manner: if a father is an entity existing through own-nature, then either he is identical or unrelated to the man before the birth of the child. If he is identical, no change could possibly have occurred (since the real does not change), that is, no birth. If the father is different, then a change occurred, that is, the child created the father by producing his fatherhood. The first alternative is rejected since a birth did occur; the second involves a change and production -- neither of which can occur to what exists through own-nature. Thus the man is neither identical nor distinct from the father and thus neither exist. And if the father does not exist, then the child does not exist (a child by definition is dependent upon a father). So there are no real fathers or children. [17]

Other arguments in the Kaarikaas rely upon this strange kind of reasoning. Verses 14.5-7 contain this somewhat confusing passage:

[What is] other depends upon [something] other; another is not different from [something] other without the other. And what is dependent does not occur distinct from it. If [what is] other is different from [something] other, it would exist without the other. And without [something] other, that [which is] other is not [something] other. Hence, it does not exist. Otherness is not found in [what is] other nor in [what is] not other. And when otherness is not found, then there does not exist the other or the that [to which something is other].

The thing which is other exists without anything else, but its otherness (seen as reified, analogous to a physical object) does not exist without there being something else. Therefore, for Naagaarjuna, like the father and child, neither is real.

The Four Alternatives
A final form of arguing needing to be dealt with is the four alternatives (catu.sko.ti). These occur in several places in the Kaarikaas, [18] but those occurring in the chapter on nirvaa.na will be explicated here since it has the most detailed

p. 493

discussion. Since the Form of the four alternatives is the same in every case, they must be dealt with in the same manner in each instance.

In Chapter 25, the four alternatives are "Nirvaa.na is an entity," "Nirvaa.na is the absence of an entity," "Nirvaa.na is both the absence and presence of an entity (abhaavo bhaava`s ca)," "Nirvaa.na is neither an entity nor the absence of an entity (naivaabhaavo naiva bhaavo)." Each alternative is denied. Nirvaa.na cannot be an entity existing through own-nature, because then it would be unattainable: nor can it be dependently arisen since it would then be connected with old age and death, composite and dependent (25.4-6). It cannot be the absence of an entity because of the interconnection of terms: where there is no entity, no absent entity can be found (25.7: yatra bhaavo na naabhaavas tatra vidyate; confer also 15.5). To be rid of the notions of becoming and annihilation cannot be characterized as an entity or its absence: nirvana is thus not an entity nor its absence (25.9-10).

The rejection of the third alternative is based upon the facts that both entities and absences are composite (sa.msk.rta) and that opposites such as light and darkness cannot be found together (verse 14). Candrakiirti agrees that nothing can be an entity-absent-entity "since such mutually contradictory (characteristics) cannot exist in one thing, and because, if they did, they would be subject to both the above strictures together" or since a bhaava and an abhaava "are mutually incompatible, they cannot possibly exist together in one place, in Nirvaa.na." [19] Verses 7.30, 8.7, and 27.17, 25-27 likewise affirm the logical impossibility of the presence of opposite properties in one place. The Brahmajaala Sutta of the Pali Canon rejects the third alternative by denying the existence of one feature (the universe being infinite laterally) and the non-existence of another feature (the universe being finite vertically). Rejecting the existence of x and the nonexistence of y is substantially different from rejecting one allegedly composed of contradictory properties. [20]

The fourth is denied based upon the third alternative:

The proposition (a~njanaa) "Nirvaa.na is neither an entity nor the absence of an entity" is established (sidhyati) if [the proposition] "It is both an entity and an absence" is established. (25.15)

Verses 27.18, 28 also contain the claim that if a thing conjoined with its negation is proved, then the fourth alternative follows. Consider also a comment by Candrakiirti on whether the Buddha exists after death: "Since both these solutions are unimaginable singly, they cannot be right both at once, neither is the negation of them both, therefore, imaginable." [21]

The way Naagaarjuna proceeds is reasonable: he rejects nirvaa.na as an entity and shows that the second alternative is dependent upon the first; the third is logically impossible and understanding the last one depends on understanding the third. And since it is meaningless to talk of the existence of nirvaa.na apart from these terms, nirvaa.na cannot be treated as an entity.

p. 494

Those who claim that in the four alternatives Naagaarjuna is denying a property, then its negation, as well as the conjunction of the first two and the conjunction of the negation of the first two, are introducing inadvertently logical paradoxes that are simply not in the text. Under this interpretation, the denial of the first alternative contradicts the second denial, and these two together are equivalent to the third, as is the fourth. What is being denied may not be isolated terms but different statements. This is a major distinction. For example, the word "self" can only be negated as "nonself," but statement (1) has two possible negations:

(1) The Buddha taught there is a self.
(2) The Buddha taught there is no self.
(3) The Buddha did not teach there is a self.

(2) and (3) do not contradict each other, but they do not claim the same thing. The one is the statement that the Buddha actively taught the nonexistence of the self (which at least in the conversation with Vacchagotta he did not do); [22] the other simply states that the Buddha taught nothing affirming the existence of the self. (1) and (2) can be consistently denied if the Buddha was silent on the matter; (1) and (3) cannot be consistently denied.

The four alternatives resemble this situation: "Thus the view 'I existed in the past,' 'I did not exist,' both and neither does not occur" (27.13). [23] This form is: "This x is p does not occur and that x is not-p does not occur." It is similar to saying: "That the unicorn is white in color does not occur and that the unicorn is nonwhite in color does not occur." These denials do not contradict each other since there are no unicorns. If there is no "I," the situation above is parallel. "`Suunya" being an adjective, a translation of part of 22.11 is "Neither 'It is void' or 'It is not void' may be said. "It is both' and 'It is neither' [may not be said]." [24] The alternatives in Chapter 24 are similar in form also.

Naagaarjuna is claiming "It is not the case that x is p, nor that x is not-p, nor that x is both p and not-p, nor that x is an entity which is neither p nor not-p," where x is an alleged real entity and p is any predicate. These denials are true and consistent if there are no real entities. [25] Since for Naagaarjuna even "is" is a technical term, there is no real subject which "is" and thus any predicate is without referent -- the problem is switched to the "it is" from what it is supposed to be. [26] In other words, a category mistake is involved in ascribing properties which presuppose existent subjects to what, in fact, arises through voidness. If we understand the nature of things, predicates "is," "void," "eternal," and so on are all dissipated (9.12), since there are no real things to which to apply them, just as those who realize the true nature of a mirage no longer think in terms of whether there is water (R 1.54-56).

Candrakiirti's comments can provide a summary:

p. 495

Because this tetralemma [eternal, non-eternal, and so on] is not applicable [to the tathaagata who is appeased by nature and void of own-nature], just as the son of a barren woman cannot be said to be either black or white, it is not defined for men by the Buddha. [27]

Naagaarjuna's Consistency and the Two Types of Truth
Through these types of arguments, Naagaarjuna attempts to remove idola mentis. He sees possible relations between entities with own-nature as so restricted that one is compelled (based upon his definitions and lines of reasoning) to turn to voidness -- only then do things work (24.14).

One final topic needs mentioning, though. Some statements are at least in prima facie conflict. Consider these fragments of two verses: "Without own-nature and other-nature, how again can there be an entity?" (15.4), and "All entities are always characterized by old age and death" (7.24). The first denies that entities exist and the second seems to affirm them. But by remembering that "is" is a technical term denoting existence by means of own-nature, the tension can be dissolved. The two quotations together could be: "All entities which are characterized by old age and death lack own-nature and therefore are not permanent or independent -- in a word, not real." That is, no entity "is" in Naagaarjuna's specialized sense. Entities within the realm of dependent origination are not "mere words" like "son of a barren woman" -- they resemble dreams and thereby do not fit into the category of existence for Naagaarjuna. Existence is unqualifiedly denied; but "existence" is a highly specialized predicate for him.

What is involved here are two types of truth (satya): conventional truth (sa.mv.rtisatya) and absolute truth (paramaarthasatya). [28] From a conventional point of view, entities exist (hence 7.24), but from the ultimate ontological point of view, there are no entities since there is no own-nature (hence 15.4). Thus the enlightened can use entity-language (such as "I" and "table") with all its convenience without getting involved in conceptual proliferation because the ultimate status of such entities is known: they do not ascribe ontological status to "entities" because of grammatical status (confer Diigha Nikaaya 1. 195f). Further, the enlightened need not contradict themselves: what is true in one context (for example, "There are tables" from a conventional point of view) may be false in the other (ultimately there are no entities termed "tables" nor any other entities). In other instances claims may be true or false from both points of view: "There are no unicorns" is true from both points of view and according to the Ratnaavalii (1.47) the notion of birth cannot be conceived from the conventional or from the absolute point of view (tattvatas). The emphasis placed on keeping the distinction between the two types of truth clear (24.9) points to the importance of knowing within which context a claim is made.

p. 496

Naagaarjuna discusses little the two types of truth; more elaborate views are set forth by later writers. In fact, all he says is that the absolute truth is based upon the conventional and that recourse to the conventional is necessary for enlightenment (24.8-10, VV 28). Only by means of the conventional is any communication possible.

It might be asked whether the claim that voidness as dependent origination is itself void is a case of something being true from one point of view and false from another. The voidness of voidness is not an attack upon dependent origination but instead is an attack upon viewing it as a real entity rather than as a fabrication whose function is to counteract other fabrications (22.1 1).

An Assessment of Naagaarjuna's Program
But if Naagaarjuna is logical and consistent, two questions (among others) can still be legitimately asked: (1) Does he succeed in establishing the dependent origination of things? (2) Does his technique "still" or "pacify" our mental fabrications?

To answer the first: if Naagaarjuna succeeds in establishing that entities arise and fall, he certainly does not establish in the process the Buddhist formula for how entities are related (that is, dependent origination) since there are logically many other alternative kinds of interdependence. Everyday experience may invalidate the position that entities are unchanging and independent, but is not enough to establish only one alternative explanation. Of course to assume initially dependent origination as a premise and then argue that there are no independent entities -- a procedure directly opposite to what he is doing -- would be pointless and question-begging.

Regarding the second question, his conclusions sound a good deal more dramatic and radical than he can adequately maintain. What he has done is to fabricate, for those who accept own-nature, a world view which is obviously incompatible with ordinary experience and then merely pointed that out. Historically would any Indian tradition accept what he supposes to be the condition of reality for such entities as pots and dharmas? To cite an anachronistic example: `Sa^nkara rejected objective entities or any phenomenon as being real in the sense of nondependence (and his characterizations of Brahman sound reminiscent of Naagaarjuna on tattva).

But ignoring the issue of whether he is attacking straw figures, problems still remain concerning his method of stilling our fabrications.

Naagaarjuna's scheme reduces to a paradox. He begins with observing change and proceeds by arguing that if any process of change is possible, then no real entities can enter in -- and if no real entities are involved, he concludes that the process is not possible. He cannot use observations to attack the possibility of real entities and then use the lack of real entities in turn to attack what is observed without a circularity becoming involved which destroys his position. When he goes, for instance, from saying neither is there a seer apart from nor

p. 497

not apart from seeing to the claim there is no seer, act of seeing or object seen (3.6), one must remember that it is only in his extremely unusual sense of "exists" (total independence) that these do not exist. In any normal sense of "exists" (for example, what produces an effect or what is publicly observable), just because the act of seeing involves more than one isolated subject does not invalidate any claim to existence of the object and subject independent of the act of perceiving -- and it certainly does not attack that there was a perception.

Consider his argument concerning a mover. For him, if the mover and the motion are real, each must be totally different from or identical with the other -- but in fact they are related. The problem would evaporate and the argument would collapse if any definition of "mover" other than "one who is in the process of moving" is employed. For example, if a mover is simply one who moves in a tenseless sense of "moves" (that is, in the sense "I eat" does not imply I am eating at this present moment), then a mover could rest: "The one who was moving is now resting" (2.16) is not absurd. No appeal to the idea of unchanging substratum denoted by "person" is necessary -- what produces an effect is constantly changing. The one who moves does exist in any usual sense of the term before that move because of which the mover is called a mover (2.22); that is, the one who moves exists before and apart from the act of moving. Similarly, the one who sees may exist before any acts of seeing which confers the label "seer" (contra 9.6), and the one who sees can be the one who hears without there being a multiplicity of subjects (contra 9.8).

People tend to divide experience along linguistic lines, such as taking adjectives as denoting "secondary properties" and nouns as denoting "primary properties." Quine has a thought-provoking remark that may be on this point:

We tend not to appreciate that most of the things and most of the supposed traits of the so-called world, are learned through language and believed in by a projection from language. [29]

Bertrand Russell gives what could be an example of this projection:

"Substance," in a word, is a metaphysical mistake, due to the transference to the world-structure of the structure of sentences composed of a subject and a predicate. [30]

Naagaarjuna unfortunately undercuts the thrust of this type of assault upon such metaphysics by connecting the problem of abstracting parts of the flux of experience and labeling them "real entities" with the supposition of his method that for an entity to be real it must be permanent and independent. Naagaarjuna is correct in pointing out that there is a continual change of attributes of persons and that we should not view these attributes as a string of real entities. There is nothing permanent in the sense that the contents of consciousness are always changing. (What makes up "persons" and "consciousness" apart from our concepts might be the reality [tattva] of which he speaks.) Even though we tend to reify attributes, the changes are not merely human

p. 498

fabrications. The words "birth" and "death" tend to isolate distinct occurrences out of a process, but they do no more than that towards causing the situation labeled thus. Showing that the reality lies not in the conceptual understanding or that there is a linguistic basis to the idea of identity does not entail that what is labeled by our concepts is "unreal" in any normal sense of the term. To go from saying that no words denote independent, unchanging, eternal entities to saying that they are without referent cannot be done. But for his method to work, this is the situation Naagaarjuna believes his opponents are in. [31] Even his description of entities being actually like dreams, mirages, or reflections shows the limitations involved: dreams are not nonexistent (R 1.38), except in his sense of the term, but are real (people do have them). He cannot conclude they are totally nonexistent in any significant sense but only that they (and those who have the dreams) neither "are" nor "are not," when these terms are given his persuasive definitions.

Naagaarjuna complicates the situation further by failing to distinguish physical dependence from conceptual dependence. In attacking the reification of "loose and separate" words into a world of loose and separate entities, he attacks one form of grammatical realism with another: he relies upon a parallelism between a conceptual mutual interdependence and an ontological reciprocal interdependence among entities. Problems discussed previously contain an element of this. Tucci's comment on Ratnaavalii 1.47 reflects Naagaarjuna's position and the problem:

Since the cause is called a cause in so far as it produces an effect, if it exists before the production of this effect, that cause cannot be the cause of this effect, because it would have no relation to it. [32]

But what is labeled "the cause" certainly may physically exist before the conceptual rearrangement involved by the process it enters into; this would destroy his point.

Consider next the argument concerning fire and kindling: "Fire does not exist dependent upon kindling: fire does not exist independent of kindling. Kindling does not exist dependent upon fire: kindling does not exist independent of fire" (10.12). If this is interpreted solely in light of Naagaarjuna's criterion that real entities can only be related by means of identity or absolute difference, the first and third clauses make sense: fire is not identical to its fuel -- where there is kindling, there need not be fire (10.13). And the second and fourth clauses point out the empirically obvious: fire does not exist totally independently since it needs fuel (10.14). So Naagaarjuna concludes there are no real entities here.

But taking any other definition of "exist," the first and fourth clauses would be false: fire is physically dependent upon some fuel (among other things). It is only conceptually that "fire" and "kindling" are not identical nor completely distinct -- wood becomes "kindling" only in relation to "fire." But

p. 499

then "kindling" is dependent upon "fire" and vice versa. So again two of the four clauses (the first and the third) are false. In either case, all four clauses are not true under one consistent interpretation of either physical or conceptual dependence. The argument appears forceful only in Naagaarjuna's artificial situation.

The passage cited earlier about the "other" relies more clearly upon the ambiguity between conceptually being an "other," while not being physically dependent upon the something else. AAryadeva's example of the father and child does the same, the child is physically dependent upon the man, while the attributes of "fatherhood" and "childhood" are mutually related.

Naagaarjuna cannot argue that interdependence of definitions (for example. of "straight" and "curved") renders the words meaningless or that physical dependence of x on y makes both unreal in any sense other than his highly restricted one.

Other objections could also be raised. For instance, why must the future be in the past for temporal relations to obtain (19.1), or why if vision cannot see itself can it not see anything else (3.2)? But behind all these arguments lies the mistaken premise that relational properties dependent upon more than one object (for example, up/down) must be treated as distinct objects. As Scharfstein puts it: "Relationships are not objects or physical parts of them. Relation-words mimic the language of physical possession and containment, but why should we confuse them any more than we confuse a parrot and a man?" [33]

All of this shows I think that Naagaarjuna succeeds at best within a very limited scope. As Robinson also concludes, his procedure is a variation on the old shell game. [34] Serious doubts thus arise about whether he can accomplish his religious intention by his method of stilling our conceptual preoccupation (and thereby ending suffering), once these problems are pointed out. [35]

NOTES
1. When no text is indicated, chapter and verse numbers refer to this text. Translations from the Kaarikaas are my own. The other two primary texts (and their abbreviations) are:
VV = Vigrahavyaavartanii. Translation from K. Bhattacharya, "The Dialectical Method of Naagaarjuna," Journal of Indian Philosophy 1 (1971): 217-261.
R = Ratnaavalii. Translation from G. Tucci, "The Ratnaavalii of Naagaarjuna," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1934): 307-325; (1936): 237-252, 423-435.
Only occasional reference will be made to later Maadhyamika thinkers. The focus will be Naagaarjuna's works, not those hundreds of years later.

2. Perhaps it should be added that although Naagaarjuna is concerned with stilling conceptual proliferation (prapa~nca), he does intend to destroy concepts per se. (For a discussion of prapa~nca in the Theravaada and the Maadhyamika traditions see Bhikkhu ~Naa.nananda, Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought [Kandy, Ceylon, 1971]). Getting caught up in conceptualizations is condemned (22:15), but not the proper use of concepts. Dependent origination, after all, is a concept;

p. 500

and the qualification "from the absolute point of view" (tattvatas) occurs frequently in the Ratnaavalii with no suggestion that anything can invalidate the claims so advanced. As long as linguistic distinctions are not projected ontologically, language is deemed very useful and even essential for enlightenment (see the discussion of the two types of truth below).

3. T. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvaa.na (The Hague: Mouton, 1965). p. 209.

4. AAryadeva's `Sata`saastra in G. Tucci, Pre-Di^nnaaga Buddhist Texts on Logic from Chinese Sources (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1929), p. 82.

5. Perhaps his opponent is speaking here since seeing an anyathaabhaava is seeing a bhaava, but perhaps only change is indicated as in the other two instances cited. Verses 7.21, 7.24 and 21.8 stress that no entity is found without arising and falling -- obviously an empirical observation. Verse 21.11 says that seeing arising and falling is the result of delusion (moha), but this could just as easily mean that seeing real entities is a misapprehension. Thus "The Hymn to the Incomparable One" (G. Tucci. "Two Hymns of the Catu.hstava by Naagaarjuna," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society [1932]: 309-325) says that the Buddha saw no beings (without losing compassion for all beings) and the Kaarikaas speak of the cessation of the seeable (that is, the real. 5.8). Observing change is definitely appealed to -- it is only that no real entities are involved that is being emphasized. He is making an empirical claim here and not recommending a metaphysical prescription (that is, that all entities should be viewed as void of own-nature).

6. The logical form is: (1) p q, (2) , (3) , therefore, (4) . This is not making an independent argument in support of his thesis; Candrakiirti occasionally reconstructs arguments into Indian syllogisms (for example, Stcherbatsky, Conception of Buddhist Nirvana, pp. 139, 192). Quine raises the prospect that logic is such a deep-rooted belief that we would not allow a translation to be illogical -- we would impute or impose our "orthodox logic" upon the text. See W. V. Quine, Philosophy of Logic (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 83. But the structures of English and Sanskrit are similar enough that this problem should not arise here. Although we cannot step back from the Sanskrit and the translation to see if a logical translation is distortive, at least an almost literal, word for word, translation can be shown to be basically logical. Consider 15.1-5:

(1) The arising of own-nature from causes and conditions is not justifiable. For own-nature arisen through causes and conditions would be something produced.
(2) How then can there be produced own-nature? Indeed, own-nature is not produced and is independent of anything else.
(3) If there is no own-nature (svabhaavasyaabhaave), how can there be other-nature (parabhaava)? For own-nature of another entity is called other-nature.
(4) Without own-nature and other-nature, how again can there be an entity? Indeed, when there is own-nature and other-nature, an entity is proved.
(5) If there is no proof of an entity, then the absence of an entity (abhaava) is not proved. Indeed, people call the absence of an entity an entity in another manner (anyathaabhaava).

Verses 1 and 2 do not establish that there is no own-nature since the possibility of own-nature not arising from causes and conditions is not dealt with. In VV 21 (considered elsewhere), he presents his argument for maintaining that all entities are void. Assuming than at least that with respect to entities "there is no own-nature," the argument from verse 3 on proceeds as follows:

(i) Everything is void of own-nature.
(ii) If own-nature is absent, there is no other-nature.
(iii) Without own-nature and other-nature, no entity exists.
(iv) If there is no entity, there is no absence of a real entity (abhaava).
(v) Thus, there are neither real entities nor their absences.

The peculiarity of this claim is dealt with elsewhere. All that is claimed here is that it is logical. Although not necessary, its logicality can be illustrated with some elementary symbolic terminology:

Let o = existence via own-nature
p = existence via other-nature
b = "There is a real entity"
a = "There is the absence of a real entity"

p. 501

(1) ("There is no own-nature" with regard to entities)
(2) (from verse 3)
(3) (from 1, 2)
(4) () (from verse 4, line 1)
(5) - (o v p) (De Morgan's Law)
(6) b (o v p) (from 5)
(7) (o v p) b (from verse 4, line 2)
(8) (o v p) b (from 6, 7. Note that the two lines of verse 4 are not equivalent and together they form a biconditional.)
(9) (from 1, 3, 4)
(10) (from verse 5)
(11) (from 9, 10)

7. Richard Robinson, "Some Logical Aspects of Naagaarjuna's System," Philosophy East and West 6 (1957): 303. Many other objections could be raised concerning this article.

8. Verses with the same form occur at 4.4, 13.4. 15.9, 20.1-2, 20.21, 21.9, 25.1-2 and 27.21, 23-24.

9. Even if Naagaarjuna's opponent is speaking in the first statement (which I have some doubts about being the case), still in the second claim Naagaarjuna does not deny the former but states only that, if the antecedent of the conditional is wrong, there is still no real entity involved -- the denial of the antecedent does not entail the negation of the consequent. Taking causation for an example: if there are real entities, the process of causation cannot occur; but if there are no real entities, then the terms "cause" and "effect" are without referents, and there is nothing to enter into the process of causation -- so again the process does not occur.

10. Stcherbatsky, Conception of Buddhist Nirvaa.na, p. 195.

11. In 22.14, the words "bhavati" and "na bhavati" carry the same intent as "asti" and "naasti." Some verses contrast "sat" and "asat" (for example, 1.6,7 and 7.20) or "sadbhuuta" and "asadbhuuta" (8.9).

12. As cited in Alex Wayman, "Who Understands the Four Alternatives of the Buddhist Texts?" Philosophy East and West 27 (1977): 13-14, 18, Candrakiirti affirms that there is own-nature and denies merely that entities arise by means of it. This would be a significant departure from Naagaarjuna's thought: for Naagaarjuna, if an entity had own-nature, it would be real (from the absolute point of view). Elsewhere (cited by Wayman, "Who Understands," p. 8) Candrakiirti's understanding of the fourth alternative is not based upon the third -- a shift from Naagaarjuna's explicit position.

13. AAryadeva's `Sata`saastra, Pre-Di^nnaaga Buddhist Texts, p. 10.

14. Perhaps the reason Naagaarjuna does not bother to state that nirvaa.na and sa.msaara are not identical is because in their ordinary context they are contrasted (as in 25.9) -- that they are not different, not that they are not identical, is all that is of interest. This contrasts with the Heart Sutra, where what is normally opposed is identified: the aggregates (skandhas) are said to be voidness.

15. From 20.20, if the producer and the product were the same, the cause would be the same as that which is not a cause -- in other words, if cause and effect are identical, there is no reason to speak of a cause or effect.

16. Example adapted from AAryadeva's example in the `Sata`saastra, Pre-Di^nnaaga Buddhist Texts. p. 39. Confer also `Saantideva's Bodhicaryaavataara 9.113-114.

17. There is nothing primitive or archaic in Naagaarjuna's exploitation of the relationships between a property and its entity. Today there are similar arguments (although not involving own-nature). For instance, philosophers debate such alleged paradoxes as someone both knowing and not knowing how to get to Philadelphia based upon the fact that the person does not know one property of that city -- that it is called "The City of Brotherly Love." (Thus the person knows how to get to Philadelphia but not to the City of Brotherly Love, that is, Philadelphia -- or so it is argued.)

p. 502

18. The first three, alternatives alone occur often (1.7, 2.24-25, 7.20, 12.9, 21.13). All four occur at 1.1, 12.1, 22.11, chapter 25, and at 18.8 where the alternatives are not denied. Candrakiirti feels that different alternatives were taught at different stages of meditative development (J. W. de Jong, Cinq Chapitres de la Prasannapadaa [Paris: P. Geuthner, 1949], p. 28). Perhaps such gradation of teaching would explain 18.6, 8 and Candrakiirti's remark that under some circumstances it may be expedient to teach that there is a self (Edward Conze, Buddhist Thought in India [Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1962], p. 130). A^nguttara Nikaaya 1.10 presents the Buddha teaching opposed doctrine to different groups too.

19. Stcherbatsky, Conception of Buddhist Nirvaa.na, pp. 172-173, 200.

20. In 27.25, Naagaarjuna deals with the possibility that the world is partly infinite and partly finite; but again he rejects this for the logical reason that then the world would be both.

21. Stcherbatsky, Conception of Buddhist Nirvaa.na, p. 204. Elsewhere (5.6, 12.9) the third alternative is said to be establishable only if the first two are. Verse 27.20 goes so far as to maintain that if the first alternative cannot be established, then none of the remaining ones can be either.

22. Sa.myutta Nikaaya 4.400-401; Majjhima Nikaaya 1.483-488.

23. eva.m d.r.s.tir atiite yaa naabhuum aham abhuum aham / ubhaya.m nobhayam ceti nai.saa samupapadyate //

24. `suunyam iti na vaktavyam a`suunyam iti vaa bhavet / ubhayam nobhayam ceti ...

25. In the A.s.tasaahasrikaa Praj~naapaaramitaa, each of the four alternatives is denied because they are predicated to subjects explicitly denied to exist (confer, Edward Conze, The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and its Verse Summary [Bolinas, California: Four Seasons Foundation, 1973], p. 85), or in the case of the tathaagata because they refer only to the aggregates (skandhas), which arise dependently (ibid., p. 176). In the Paali canon, each alternative is said not "to fit the case" (Sa.myutta Nikaaya 4.373-402) and not to be conducive to enlightenment.

26. Again, "is" and "is not" are not exhaustive alternatives but are interdependent terms denoting only what involves own-nature. Since they are not logically exhaustive, the law of the excluded middle is not violated when both "is" and "is not" are denied. No multivalued logic is necessary to understand that there are no unicorns white in color nor not white in color since there are no unicorns. The same applies to what exists by own-nature.

27. My own translation from J. W. de Jong, Cinq Chapitres, p. 83.

28. "Paramaarthatas" is equivalent to "tattvatas." Thus the Prasa^ngika made "paramaartha" equivalent to "tattva." But if for them paramaarthasatya became "beyond words" and the negation of sa.mv.rtisatya, their position contrasts with Naagaarjuna's in Ratnaavalii 1.47 where the two truths do not conflict.

29. Williard van Orman Quine, The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, (New York: Random House, 1966), p. 19.

30. Cited in Paul Henle (editor), Language, Thought and Culture (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1966), Confer also Arthur Danto on "Grammatical Realism" in his "Language and the Tao: Some Reflections on Ineffability," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 1 (1973): 45-55.

31. This is what he says of his opponents. The Buddha's use of language, he feels, is free of this error because of the two types of truth. For the enlightened there is a change in how the nature of language is seen, not how it is used -- words are seen as directing attention .to aspects of the flux of experience without establishing concrete objects. The problem with Naagaarjuna's method for pointing this out is still there, though.

32. Tucci, "The Ratnaavalii of Naagaarjuna," op. cit., p. 319.

33. Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Mystical Experience (Baltimore, Maryland: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974), p. 58.

34. Richard Robinson. "Did Naagaarjuna Really Refute All Philosophical Views?" Philosophy East and West 22 (1972): 325-331. As with the other article by him cited earlier, I do not agree with all that Robinson says.

35. I would like to thank Professors Alex Wayman and Frederic B. Underwood for a number of valuable discussions even if they do not always concur.