The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)

XXXY. Controversy with the Buddhist logician continued.

However (there is still a question to be considered, viz. the theory of our Buddhist epistemologists). «We are only giving,(they maintain), a scientifical de¬ scription of what just happens in common life, in regard to the sources of know¬ ledge and their (respective) objects. (We do not consider their transcendental reality). 4

The Logician. (No, but) bunglers in logik, (the Naiyayikas) have given wrong definitions (of logical processes) and we have then given the right ones.

The Madhyamika. This also is beyond the mark, (we 'will reply, because it the realistic logicians, the Naiyayikas, are) bad logicians, and have given wrong definitions (of logical processes), then there must be a gap bet¬ ween what humanity (at large imagines about) the essence of cognition (and what the realists are teaching). Then alone will your (emendatory) work prove promi¬ sing. But this is not the case. Your work therefore is a quite useless occupation. 5

1 gatavya , cp. II. 25.

2 Ch. II is devoted to the denial of motion. It is noteworthy that a splendid opportunity offered itself here to Nagarjuna to repeat, in some form or other, some of Zeno’s of Elea deductions of our usual conception of motion ad absurdum. The Greek philosopher was also a monist, he was anxious to prove that motion is really impossible, because he followed Parme¬ nides in denying plurality. There is no trace of Nagarjuna having known them.

3 Lit., p. 58.12-13. . .in order to teach that without exception every characteristic of 2pratitya-samutpada does not exist». In this phrasing pratitya-samutpada becomes a synonym of reality (sdmvrtah pratitya-samutpddah). Since it is also synonymous with Sunyata, cp. p. 431, it is quite clear that this latter term means reality, and not voidness, the voidness refers to all its determinations which have only empirical reality.

4 It seems that the first chapter originally ended with the words pratipadandrtham , p. 58.12—13. The following discussion with a follower of Dignaga looks like a later addition.

s Lit., p. 59. 1—3. ((This also is wrong. If indeed bad logicians have produced inverted definitions, common mankind would have the reverse of what is being defined, for the sake of it there could be (some) fruitfulness of the endeavour. But it is not so. Therefore ther endeavour is quite useless ». The Naiyayikas, in their conceptions about the categories of existence and the ways of cognizing them, follow the every-day conceptions of common humanity. Now, if the Buddhist Logician, who is here represented as likewise adhering to the every-day logic, has really no other aim than to correct the logic of the Naiyayikas, there must be a divergence between the latter and the common life views, otherwise the Buddhist would have nothing to correct in these theories of the Naiyayikas. But «it is not so», i. e., the Naiyayika views are much nearer to the conceptions of simple humanity than what the Buddhists are teaching about logical questions.

appendix: candrakirti’s comment on relativity, I 141