NAGARJUNA'S PHILOSOPHY whole which is the composite thing When these distinguishable aspects �re themselves imagined to be entities, like form, smell etc they are themselves to be treated as either having or not having the characte.rs of compositeness birth, stay and death, the three characters of compositeness, either there are further characters of birth, stay and death, or there are not If there are these further characters, then there will be an endless regression If there are not, then these characters are not themselves composite, and not being themselves composite, how can they be the characters of compositeness?48 Of The question is: How is a thing born? It is said that a thing is born by being related to birth, being brought to birth by birth When we conceive that the thing to be born is an entity in itself and that birth is another entity in itself, and yet say that the thing is to be born by being originated by birth, then there arise difficulties Could we not say the same thing about birth also? If birth is also to be brought to birth,49 then what brings it to birth? Another birth will not do, for there also the same question arises We have entered a cul-de-sac We have left the thing behind and taken up many other and subtler entities in its place and each of these is in turn given up and in its place many more elements appear The stream oflife is congealed into many disconnected entities and the abstract is imagined to be absolute The invention of primary and secondary birth is of no avail If birth is itself a thing to be brought to birth doubling the birth would be only to double the issue On the supposition of many ultimately separate elements there cannot be any organic system of happenings Again, as the Karika asks, how can birth etc., which are elements opposed to one another, happen together?50 How can they be in one and the same thing and at one and the same time? And if they are to happen one by one, how can one happen without the other? How can there be anything at any time with only birth without duration and extinction? If it could be so at any time, why should it not be so at all times? On this score either together or separately, birth and death can188 CRITICISM OF CATEGORIES to things If birth is itself one thing and death another, each mutually opposed to the other and both different from the thing, how can we conceive the relation of birth to death and of both to the thing itself? When we cannot see how a thing arises, how can we conceive its extinction? It has been already observed that things by themselves cannot come 'to birth nor can it be conceived that certain things are brought into existence by certain other things And how can we conceive birth and death to be there except as belonging to something? How can this something be conceived without birth and death?51 Birth and death not happen to an absolute being Again birth and death are not either totally identical, or utterly different and disconnected As the Karika puts it, not happen To him who conceives (absolute) existcnce in regard to things there happen the two views of eternalism and negativism, for the things then should be either absolutely existent or utterly evanescent.5a But can it not be that existence is a stream of elements which are really completely evanescent? In that case, there would ha.ppen on the one hand a comple te negation of causal connection, and on the other, there would result the posi tion that the thing having been absolutely exis tent now becomes totally non-existcnt Again, even granting that t.here is a causal link, how is the last moment of one span of existence related to the first moment of the next? Whether the last moment of the preceding span of existence be conceived as already extinct, or not yet extinct or being presently extinct, in any case it cannot be related to the first moment of the succeeding span of existence 53 What is denied? Here again the negative criticism is a denial not of motion or birth or any other activity but of the po ssibility of under standing these on the supposition of thc reali ty and separateness of the ultimates of analysis It brings to light the truth of conditioned origina tion ; that is not itself denied Spe akiJ;J g of right deeds, the Siistra recounts practically all the argu ments of the Karika (ch II ) and concludes : 89 NAGARJUNA'S PHILO S O PHY In this way aU deeds are siinya (rela tive an d co ntingent) ; and the deeds (that are done with this understanding ) are called the right deeds (:llk � JE�) (The farer on the Great Way ) , the bodhisattva, comprehends (A) the (ultim ate ) sameness of all deeds ; and he does not take the good deed as merito rious and the evil deed as devoid of merit (For, in the ul ti mate truth there is not this distinction of good and ba d ) In the ultimate truth there are no deeds, go o d or evil This is the true prajfiii B ut this is itself also the ri ght deed (for it i ss ues in the deed that is done with the right unde rst anding) Having achieved the true und e rs tanding of deeds, one neither does deeds no r desists from them (fo r one is devoid of clinging and so one does not consider oneself as the doer of deeds ) And such a wise man always does the right deeds and never any wrong ones This is the right deed of the �odhisattva.54 (205C) Rejecting on the one hand the clinging in reg a rd to deeds and, on the other, the consequent sense of pride and p assion , here is revealed the true understanding which is the basis of right deeds The deeds them selves are not denied D Beginning and Erid Beginning and end as absolute concep ts: One of the outcomes of the dis cussion on the characters of compositeness is the impossibility of con ceiving any absolute beginning in regard to the course of b ir th and death which is essentially conditioned b ecoming The world, whether of the constituted being or of the constituent elements, is devoid of beginning ( and devoid of end).55 (290c) To conceive absolute beginning and absolute end in regard to the course of existence is to see them as devoi d of c onditi ons, which means a denial of causal co ntinuity O rigination would the n be uncaused and extinction, total This predicament o f b e ginning and end in fact con fronts one at every step, in the case of every unit of b ec o ming In order 190 CRITICISM or CATEGORIES to avoid the error of absolute beginning the clinging mind would swing to the other extreme of conceiving the course of existence to be absolutely beginningless ; but this is again to think that it is uncon ditioned Actually when beginning means the root-principle, i.e., the root of error and evil which are the basic forces of the world of the ignorant, the beginning is ignorance itself and we have already observed that ignorance is not anything unconditioned the beginning in time, there is always a And when beginning means beginning for every moment even as there is always an end so, even in this sense, the course of ex istence is devoid of (absolute) beginning ; but this consideration should not lead one to think tha t it is absolutely beginningless, devoid even of relative beginning The course of existence in which the ignorant re volve has its root in ignorance which is not a total non-entity Again, no event in the course of existence is dev�id of its own relative begin ning in time The Siistra raises a question: Does not a denial of the devoidness of beginning mean an assertion of beginning ? And does not an assertion of beginning lead one to the wrong notion of absolute beginning and (absolute) end? It answers : Now, by means of the beginning (£L�Ml�), siinyatii (non-ultimacy) of the devoidness of the position that the cycle of existence is (ab solutely) beginningless is denied and there is also no falling into the position that the cycle of existence has (an absolute) beginning Having saved a man from (1fMl�) one should not put him again into deep fire, waters Now, here, the position that the cycle of existence is beginning less is denied and there is no clinging even to the position of there being a beginning This is the faring on the Middle Way (29I a) individuality (JflZ�1:.f§) and the characters of (-f§�f§) and by pushing the imagination back Again, it is by seizing identity and difference from the present span of life to the span previous to it, that there arises the notion that neither of the individuals nor of their constituent ele ments can any beginning be found This creates 191 the notion of begin- NAGARJUNA'S PHILOSOPHY ninglessness in regard to the cycle of birth and death But this notion is false and is based on clinging to identity and difference (.l;J.-Am*)66a Actually, Even as the sunyata of the composite negates (the clinging to) the composite things and when the siinyata of the composite itself turns out to be a perversion (�1f�ge:NP@i�,'it:l ) (giving rise to a clinging to the incomposite) then, by means of the siinyatii (indeterminate nature) of the incomposite (the clinging to) the incomposite is also denied (@i.l;J.� �ge:����), just so, now, by means of (the idea of) beginninglessness the beginning is denied and of the cycl e of existence the position of when beginninglessness is itself turned into (an extreme and when it thus turns out to ·be itself) a perversion (l�,), then by means of the siin yata of beginninglessness, even beginninglessness is denied This siinyata of beginninglessness (291a) is the That all beings revolve in the cycle of birth and