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

3 According to the Indian grammarians and realistic logicans, a sentence contains an expression of an action associated with an agent and factors (karaka), or circumstances. This theory of speech the Madhyamika accepts with the aforesaid proviso. But the school of Dignaga have a special theory of their own about the meaning of words according to which words express only relations, or mutual negation (apoha = paraspara-parihdra = anya-vyavrtti = vyavaccheda =

= 2 )ariccheda) between point-instants. Reality is even characterized as that what can never be

APPENDIX: CANDRAKIRTI’S COMMENT ON RELATIVITY, I

p. 15

that analysis of our speech which implies (the reality) of actions, factors and their connection. This indeed is a very great disaster! (When you speak) you make use of these very words which express actions, factors and their con¬ nection, but you yourself do not admit the reality of their meaning, of these actions, these agents etc. Alas! your attitude 1 is influenced by mere desires.

69. li. And if, as we have shown, the duality of every thing cognizable is a moot point, then we must agree with those who admit other sources of knowledge (besides sensation and thought), as e. g., Revelation etc., (since these sources of knowledge are not devised with a view strictly to agree with the duality of everything cognizable), the particular and the universal.

XLI. The Definition of sense perception.

• 69. 13. Madhyamika. Further (your theory of an extreme particular as the «thing in itself») is wrong, because your definition 2 (of sense-perception, through which it is supposed to be apprehended is deficient). It is too narrow, it does not cover such every-day expressions as «the jar is a perception)),
• (i. e., the physical object before us is perceived) and these (usual) expressions of the ordinary man 3 should likewise be taken into acount. Therefore (your definition) is wrong.

expressed in speech {paramdrtha-sat = svalaksana—pratyaksa = nirvilcalpaka = anablrilapya) The Miidhyajnika here hints at this theory and sets forth the argument that if speech could express nothing real, nothing positive, no actions, agents etc., then it would he impossible for people to enter into conversation. This remark is of course more of a glib gibe and unfair, since the Madhyamika’s own ultimate reality is also inexpressible in speech ( nisprapanca = anabhilapya = anupdkhya, prapanca —vdk). But Candraklrti thinks that no improvement in the logic of the Realists is needed, no critical theory of cognition, no «thing in itself» and no negative theory of speech ( apoha ). The logic, of the Naiyayikas can be accepted wholesale for the phenomenalaspectoftheworld,andforthe Absolutenologicatall is needed. The school of Dignaga, as well as the Hinayanists, can maintain that they also admit a double aspect of life, one on the surface (samvrti) and one ultimate (paramartha) or concealed ( samrrta ), cp. Ab. kosa, V.12, but C. is persuaded that his vindication of an empirical reality has a greater force. The Madhyamikas are the inventors of the doctrine of a double «truth» which they probably contrasted with the «four truths# of the Hinayana, cp. Madhy.s., XXIV. 8. This is also partly the reason why the Madhyamikas, and their followers the Vedantins, deem it permissible freely to use tbe arguments of the Naiyayiks when combating Buddhist Idealism,cp.above p.38n.3. At Sribar§a’s time,when the enemy is no more the Buddhist, but the Naiyiiyik, this attitude changes.