The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)
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(sva-bhava-dharanad dharmah). They were cancelled by the Sautrantika on the consideration that they did not possess any such separate reality. They also were cancelled by the Madhyamikas in consequence of the new definition of reality ( anapeksah svabhavah). This new weapon proved much more efficacious than the Occam Razor of the Sautrantika, especially as it was wielded by the Madhyamika with unflinching resolve. His conception of Relativity (sunyata) covered everything, all the conditional as well as the eternal elements of the Y aibhasika list. Indeed the idea of an absolute becomes meaningless, if there is nothing to set against it . 1 It then loses every indivi¬ duality or reality ( sva-bhdva ). And vice versa the phenomenal ceases to be phe¬ nomenal if there is nothing non-phenomenal with which it is contrasted. With the new interpretation of the principle of Relativity ( pratitya-samutpada = sunya) the Hinayanic Absolute becomes just as relative as all other ultimates of this system.
Very far reaching consequences had inevitably arisen from this newly adopted principle. The whole edifice of Early Buddhism was undermined and smashed. The Nirvana of the Hlnayanists, their Buddha, their onto¬ logy and moral philosophy, their conceptions of reality and causation were abandoned, together with the idea of the ultimate reality of the senses and sense data (rupa), of the mind (< dtta-caitta ), and of all their elements of Matter, Mind and Forces. «Nowhere and never» says Candraklrti, «have Buddhas preached the reality of the soul or of these Hlnayanistic elements ». 2 All the constructions so laboriously built up by the schools of Early Bud¬ dhism had to be relinquished with the only exception of the principle of dependently-coordinated-existence ( pratitya-sam-utpada) in its new inter¬ pretation as Relativity (simyata). The textbook of the school devotes a chapter to every conspicuous item of the constructions of Early Buddhism, and destroys it by the same weapon, for whatsoever is relative is false, transient and illusory.
The fortunes of MahaySna were greatly assisted by the wonderful style in which Nagarjuna couched his celebrated aphorisms. Notwithstand¬ ing the somewhat monotonous method by which he applies to all the con¬ ceptions of Hinayana the same destructive dialectics, he never ceases to be
1 Ibid VII. 33.
2 Ibid. p. 443.2.
XVI. THE MAHAYANIST NIRVANA interesting, bold, baffling, sometimes seemingly arrogant. And this method of endless repetition of the same idea, although in different connections, impresses the student with the overwhelming, all-embracing importance of the principle of Relativity. In their Tibetan garb, owing to the mono¬ syllabic cutting precision of this wonderful language, the aphorisms become, if possible, still more eloquent than in the original, and are, up to the present day, studied in the .monastic schools, and repeated by the monks with rapturous admiration. Something like terror is inspired by this insist¬ ing and obstinate denial of all, even the most revered and cherished notions of the Hlnayanist. «What are we to do», exclaims Aryadeva, the next best expounder of the doctrine, «nothing at all exists !)) 1 « Even the name of the doctrine inspires terror !)) 2
However it is only the Hlnayanist and all pluralists in general that need to be afraid of Nagarjuna’s dialectics . 3 He does not assail, but extols the idea of the Cosmical Body of Buddha. He extols the principle of Relativity, and destroys through it every Plurality, only in order to clear up the ground and establish on it the unique, undefinable ( anirvacanlya ) Essence of Being, the One-without-a-Second. According to the principle of monistic philosophy, consistently applied, all other entities have only a second hand, contigent reality, they are borrowed cash.