मूलमध्यमककारिका (आचार्य नागार्जुन - चन्द्रकीर्ति प्रणीत प्रसन्नपदा व्याख्या सहित)

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decay and death.¹ Negation is also a false fiction. According to
him negation is another entity. Candrakīrti has made it abun-
dantly clear that absolute negation with reference to the background
of a positive entity is unthinkable. It is only a name and a word
without a meaning. Śaṅkarācārya on the other hand distinguishes
the phenomenal world from a fiction and Absolute Reality. The
world of plurality, both mental and physical is logically indeter-
minable. He admits empirical and pragmatic validity but denies
it the nature of Absolute Reality. Reality is always Absolute
and Śūnyatā is also Absolute. Nāgārjuna repudiates that it is
reality (bhāva) and also that it is negative. But the negative
according to Nāgārjuna is always another positive real. Negation
is relative and this leads him to deny that Śūnyatā is pure negation.
Because that would invest it with a positive character.
We leave apart the interpretation of modern philosophers.
It will remain a moot question. But it should be remembered that
Candrakīrti denies the doctrine of triple reality (trisvabhāva).
In the Madhyāntavibhāga, Asaṅga the putative author of it
criticizes the concept of Śūnyatā as pure voidity. He posits the
Ultimate Reality as consciousness. In the Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkāra
there are texts which unequivocally posit an Ultimate Reality of the
nature of pure consciousness at the back of phenomenal universe,
and this reality is monistic in character and metaphysically
indistinguishable from the Brahman of the Upaniṣads. Dignāga,
Dharmakīrti, Śāntarakṣita and their later followers are found to
assert categorically that consciousness is momentary. There are
good reasons to believe that Dignāga and his school deny the Ālaya-
consciousness. Śaṅkarācārya has criticized in his commentary on
the Brahmasūtra the philosophical theory advocated by this school.
Dignāga's popularity and powerful dialectic threw the old Yogācāra
school of Maitreyanātha and Asaṅga into utter oblivion.
We do not consider that the characterization of Śūnyatā as
a relative validity by Dr. P. L. Vaidya a happy appraisal. Relative
validity is only a euphemism for philosophical invalidity. Whatever
is found to be relative is dismissed by Nāgārjuna as unreal
appearance.

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1 Bhāvas tāvan na nirvāṇaṁ jarāmaraṇalakṣaṇam | Prasajyetāsti bhāvo hi
na jarāmaraṇaṁ vinā || MS. 4. P. 229.

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Before concluding our brief survey, it may not be out of
place to reproduce the philosophical appraisal of Śūnyavāda as
distinct from Brahmavāda by Śrīharṣa in his Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhā-
dya. Śrīharṣa observes that the doctrine of anirvacanīyatā, i. e.
logical indeterminancy¹ is not to be confounded with the Buddhist
doctrine of Śūnyatā. The Buddhist regards everything relative or
absolute as logically indeterminable, whereas the Vedāntists believe
that Brahman is capable of being characterized as the transcenden-
tal reality and everything else is indeterminate². Indeterminency
and metaphysical unreality are synonymous terms. We again
reiterate the historical fact that Śūnyavāda has been criticised by
all schools of philosophers as the doctrine of pure Negativism. In
this respect the Buddhist school other than Śūnyavāda, the Jains,
and all the Brahmanical schools are unambiguously unanimous.
A positivistic interpretation, even if legitimate, would make
Nāgārjuna immune from the attack of his critics. We do not
mean to prejudge the issue and leave it to genuine students of
Mahāyāna Buddhism to draw their conclusions.

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1 We have borrowed this expression from Dr. Mookerjee's monograph entitled
The Absolutist's Standpoint In Logic, p. 138.
2 Evamca sati saugatabrahmavādinor ayaṁ viśeṣo yad ādimaḥ sarvam evā-
nirvacanīyaṁ varṇayati. Tad uktam Bhagavatā Laṅkāvatāre: Buddhyā
vivicyamānānāṁ svabhāvo nāvadhāryate | Ato nirabhilapyāste nis svabhā-
vāśca deśitāḥ || iti. Vijñānavyatiriktaṁ punar idaṁ viṣayaṁ sadasadbhyāṁ
vilakṣaṇaṁ brahmavādinaḥ saṅgirante. Tathā hi ne' dam sad bhavitum
arhati, vakṣyamāṇadūṣaṇa-grastatvāt, nā' py asad eva, tathā sati laukika-
vicārakāṇām, sarvavyavahāravyāhatyāpatteḥ. Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya,
p. 125...... Vastutas tu vayaṁ prapañcasattvavyavasthāpanavinivṛttāḥ svata-
ḥsiddhe cidātmani Brahmatattve kevale bharam avalambya caritārthāḥ
sukham āsmahe. Ibid. p. 131.