NAGARjUNA'S PHILOSOPHY followers which vitiated the atmosphere' and constituted an obstruction to clear unders.tanding.80 To Nagarjuna it must have appeared strange and sad that the very words of the Master who taught the non-con tentious way should have been made the obj ect of contention hay and clinging (graha) 81 (upalamb By this J:Iis followers were practically shutting themselves out from the richness inherent in His teachings, and wer� hardly taking seriously the fact that He taught one and the same truth differently to different people To be aware of the possibility of different formulations of one and the same truth from different stand points is to rise above the exclusive clinging to any one of these formula tions as absolutely- true This is the non-exclusive understanding that lies at the root of the Buddha's skilfulness That he had this skilfulness His disciples readily agreed ; but', its significance they seem hardly to have appraised On the contrary they had set aside this basic truth which belonged to the very heart of the Way He showed The tendency to seize is the root of conflict and st!lfering: ThiS" sitUation seems to have provided for Nagarjuna but one instance of the inveterate tendency of the human mind, the tendency to cling, to seize This tendency, which functions under a false imagination �nd not on right understanding, is the root of suffering in life and of dead-ends ((lII ta) and conflict in understanding.82 By seizing the relatively distinct as absolutely separate one is never able to regain the dynamic, organic relatedness in which the richness of life consists.83 Again, setting out to provide an intelligible account of the meaningfulness of life he who involves himself in dead-ends really ends in self-contradictions The tendency to seize the relative as absolute is at root the thirst for the real in man but it is misapplied 84 This misapplied drive tQward the real has been called in the present work, the error of misplaced absolute ness This is a false imagination that engenders the attitude of clinging and confines one to the level of fragmentariness While the thirst for the real is indeed the root of all the activities of man, it is under ignor ance, not knowing the true nature of things that one seizes hold of everything one comes across, clings to it as a safe refuge, as ultimately 38 INTRODUCTION and fully satisfying th� thirst for the unconditioned, only to meet with disappointment and frustration In right understanding (JIumna� bhutapratyavelqa) not only there is revealed the determinate as determinate but there is revealed also in it the indetermin ate or the unconditioned as distinct from the determi nate But if one were to seize in tum the distinction of the det�rminate and the indeterminate as an a.bsolute separateness, that again would be to commit once more the error of clinging The determinate is not self-being ; it is not only essentially related to all the other things in the world which are also specific determinate entities, but as a determi nate entity it has its being only in dependence on the indeterminate Pratttyasamutpdda, conditioned or dependent origination, which means the es�ential relativity of things, has its bearing on the determinate entity not only in regard to its arising from the complex of causal factors, but also in regard to its essentially dependent nature, viz., its dependence on the independent, ultimate, reality s It is a basic conception in the philosophy of Nagarjtma that while the indeterminate reality is the ground of the determinate entities, it is only the ultimate nature of the latter themselves and not another entity apart from them a The ultimate nature of man is the undivided being: In regard to the nature and destiny of the human individual, this has the profound signi ficance that man as a specific, determinate individual is not absolutely confmed to his determinate nature As an individual, man is essentially related to the rest of the world He is also not apart fr�m the indetermi nate reality which is the ultimate ground of his very being find in his ultimate nature man is himself the indeterminate, unconditioned reality the undivided being The ultimate meaning of the sense of lack, the seu.se of devoidness (sunyata) , which is the thirst for the reat, Nagarjuna would say , lies in the realization of this real nature of onesel£ The imagination that one is bound forever to one 's fragmentariness alienates the conditioned from the unconditioned, reducing the relative distinc tion to absolute sep arateness The thirst for the real in man is not bound to end in despair What brings about despair is one's own imagination 39 NAGARjUNA'S PHILOSOPHY that one's limitedness is one's ultimat� nature A rise in one's aware ness frOM the level of finiteness to the realization of one's ultimate narure is possible, Nagarjuna would say, and in this rise consists the fulfillment of the thirst in man The way to this realization is prepared by one's awakening to the absurdities and self-contradictions involved in one's false imagination Nagarjuna's criticism of the categories, the basic factors of life and understanding, is intended to lay bare these absurdities, thereby to reveal the conditionedness (siinyatii) of the conditioned as- well as the further truth that the conditionedttess of the conditioned is not unconditioned (siinyatii-siinyatii) Prajna as the principle of comprehension is the Middle War: The under ,tanding that is the consUnimating phase of criticism is appreciative of the unique nature and value of every specific standpoint, and 'yet is not confmed to any one point of view This is a comprehensive under standing inclusive of the several standpoints on the same level as well as of the different levels of understanding.88 Levels and perspectives need to be distinguished and this distinction needs to be appreciated as a relative distinction and not an absolute division This comprehen sive understanding is s9ught to be conveyed in the philosophy of the Middle Way by prajna As the principle of comprehension it is the Middle Way, the way that rises above exclusiveness In it there is no rejection of anyclUng except the imagination of absoluteness in regard to what is oilly relative As Nagarjuna says in the Kiirikii, "Everything holds good in the case of one who is in agreement with stinyatii.�'89 In this philosophy of the Middle Way, deterrninate entities as well specific concepts and conceptual formulations are not only accepted but taken as essential to give expression to the real in man These_ are essential also for the complete realization of the ultimate reality "The ultimate truth cannot be taught, " says Nagarjuna, "except in the con as text of the*mundane truth, and unless the ultimate truth is comprehend ed, NirvaI:la cannot be realized "uo But clinging to the specific con cepts and conceptual systems as absolute is rejected A view, a specific conceptual formulation is, at root a unique way in which one seeks to 40 INTRODUCTION give expression to the sense of the unconditioned, on the plane of the determinate, by way of the ever-increasing, ever-enhancing, under standing of and the establishing of a unity with the rest of the world This is the growth which one achieves in respect to one's being in the world This everyone does in his own way, from his own specific standpoint which embodies its own perspective 'l The rejection of views which is an essential point in the philosophy of the Middle Way means that no specific view, being specific, is limitless, and no view, being a view, is ultimate The ultimate truth is no t any "view."83 " Silence is the ultimate truth for the wise "94 And yet, the ultimate truth can be and needs to be expressed from the mundane standpoint 93, This is the standpoint of man as a seJf-conscious individual striving through thought and action to give expression to the deepe st sense in him; viz., the sense of the real To elucidate the sense of the real is the mission of the Miidhyamika: The sense of the real, wi th its import that the conditi oned is distinct from the unconditioned and further that the real, ultimate nature of the con ditioned is itself the unconditioned reality is the minimum presupposi ; tion of all endeavour of man and its elucidation is the primary function of philosophy All the specific formulations of conceptual systems are secondary to and are based on it Even the attitude of refraining from constructing ;my system is ultimately based on this basic truth However one may put it, this is the truth of the ultimacy of the unconditioned This is the basic import of se1f-consciousness, the fundamental insight, the timeless truth, the eternal light in the heart of man} It is there only to be "discovered," to be realized This is-not a presupposition put forth for later corroboration, but the insight that is the ulti mate foundation of every "proposition" proposed of dungs No one has any exclusive claim to this truth, but everyone, if he chooses, can discover it in him self as the be dro ck , the fc;undation of his very being It is this ultimate truth that the Madhyamika, the traveller on the Middle Way, has sought to lay bare His claim that he has no position of his own' means that this basic truth, whi ch he lays bare is not any thing exclusively his own but is in the possession of every self-con41 NAG!RjUNA'S PHILOSOPHY scious individual One can see it if one develops an eye to see is his mission to enkindle this insight it and it His rejection of views does not mean that he is opposed to building systems ; he would himself formu late specific systems, not to cling to them, but to use them as a help to those who are in need of them That he does not have any position of his own means that he does not seize any sp\::cific formulation ex clusively This sense of non-exclusiveness en ables him to keep himself en rapport with every system and to see the truth in every position Non-exclusiveness (siinyatii) the Madhyamika would s ay , is of the very nature of wisdom (prajiiii) Rej e cting the error of misplaced ab soluteness, he reveals the conditioned as conditioned and the uncondi tioned as unconditione d In thi s he is doing just what the sun does ; the s un does not make the high low or the low high, but just reveals the nature of things as they are, the low as low and the high as high.9 The place of the Kiirikii and the Siistra in the total system : In the Kiirikii itself one finds practically all the principal conceptions in the philosophy of Nagarjuna - But there these are o bscured by its overwhelmingly negative character The fact that there he is advancing arguments reductio ad absurdum nee ds to be kept in mind while one reads that text The negative conclusions belon g not to - him but to those whose posi tions are under examination The absoluteness of specific views and of particular entities is assu med for the sake of argu ment and the con clusions that n aturally follow from such a p o s iti on are exp o s e d , which on account of the abs urdity of the initial assu mpti o n , are b ound to be ab sur d Thus the imagined absolutenes s (sasvabhaflatva) of what is only relative is rejected and at the same t i me relativity (naj�/sviibhiivya) is revealed as its true nature Relativity or non-ultimacy of views - and conditionedness or n on-substantiality of entities-this is the truth th at is bome out by sunyatii in reference to the mun dane nature of things In the Kiirikii, pratityasumutpiida (co nditione d ori g imtion) , sunyatii, upadiiya-prajnapti (derive d name ) and madhyamii-pratipat (the Middle Way) are expressly declared as synonyms 9 Here one finds further that the relativity of the relative is not i ts ultimate nature ; to cling to sii/Jyatii or relativity as itself absolute is the mos t serious of errors l O O 42 ... the determinate as determinate but there is revealed also in it the indetermin ate or the unconditioned as distinct from the determi nate But if one were to seize in tum the distinction of the. .. nature of things as they are, the low as low and the high as high.9 The place of the Kiirikii and the Siistra in the total system : In the Kiirikii itself one finds practically all the principal... of the latter themselves and not another entity apart from them a The ultimate nature of man is the undivided being: In regard to the nature and destiny of the human individual, this has the