Prajna-mula-madhyamika, the major text among the six root Madhyamika teachings of Nagarjuna, teaches about emptiness, the sole path to attain pristine cognition. By learning and contemplating this teaching, one can generate insight into the reality that is beyond the eight fabricated extremes. The teaching is described briefly through the following summary of its twenty-seven chapters. [The first fifteen chapters were published in the previous issue of Palyul Times and the remaining chapters are as follows.]
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Chapter Sixteen: Analysis of Bondage and Liberation
This chapter points out that as long as we have fixed ideas of ‘bondage and liberation’ or ‘suffering and happiness’, we cannot go beyond the two extremes of samsara and nirvana. Thus, to attain perfect Buddhahood is to realize that, ultimately, there is neither samsara that needs to be abandoned nor nirvana that needs to be attained. Thus, this analysis is of the non-existence of bondage and liberation, when examined in the ultimate sense of reality.
Chapter Seventeen: Analysis of Cause and Effect
In this chapter, the nature of cause of effect is analyzed. It explains that when there is cyclic existence, there is the inter-linkage of cause and effect; similarly, when there is no cyclic existence, there is no inter-linkage of cause and effect. This refutes some non-Buddhists who argue that the nature of cause and effect is truly established. However, Nagarjuna analytically points out that it is established, but only in the conventional sense.
Chapter Eighteen: Analysis of Self and Phenomena
This chapter analyzes self and phenomena. Buddhapalita said that this chapter is the essence of all the chapters in this text. It refutes the assertions of the inherent existence of self and phenomena with the nature of suchness. Nagarjuna says that self is neither in the aggregates nor separate from them. Thus, he delineates the emptiness of self and phenomena.
Chapter Nineteen: Analysis of Time
In this chapter, it is analyzed that the three times of past, future and present are unobservable, even in their nature. This investigation establishes that the three times do not inherently exist, as present and future depend on the past and, illogically, both times must be there at the same moment. The past, without relying on ‘present’ and ‘future’, wouldn’t exist, like a barren woman’s child. Furthermore, division of the existing present-time into ever-smaller fractions of a second would eventually come to the point of emptiness. Thus, the three times depending on other objects are unborn in nature.
Chapter Twenty: Analysis of Gatherings
In this chapter, it is taught that ordinary people perceive things due to the gathering of perpetual causes and favourable conditions in the right time, but Madhyamika establishes that the gathering of causes and conditions does not produce the outcome, either at the time of gathering, or after the gathering, or before. These gatherings themselves rely upon causality and time to produce effects, and do not produce effects that the Buddhist proponents of ‘true existence’ assert as an inherent whole.
Chapter Twenty-One: Analysis of Appearance and Cessation
In this chapter, Nagarjuna logically establishes the non-existence of the appearance and cessation of any object. Even if time plays a role in bringing about continuous deterioration, it is already invalidated that time exists independently. Therefore, the interdependent existence of appearance and cessation interrelate with an object and time, which is empty in nature.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Analysis of Suchness or Tathagata
In this chapter, other Buddhist proponents insist that Tathagata is inherently existent because it is the continuum of cyclic existence. However, Nagarjuna disproves such inherent existence by refuting the substantial and nominal existence of the recipient and the closely adopted aggregates.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Analysis of Wrong View
This chapter clearly shows that wrong view is mainly created by mental darkness. As all the buddhas have said, the three defilements that arise from conceptual thought, which is dependent on its cause, are devoid of inherent existence. Hence, the thesis of wrong views like impermanence being permanent, unclean being clean, and selflessness as self are finally negated with syllogisms of cause and effect, baselessness, fortuitousness, causelessness and non-conception.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Analysis of the Four Noble Truths
In this chapter, other proponents say that if nothing exists inherently, the designations such as the Four Noble Truths, the Three Jewels and the law of cause and effect will not exist. To this point, Nagarjuna says that emptiness does not mean mere emptiness or just the absence of something, but it is devoid of all four extremes and the union of the relative and ultimate truths.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Analysis of Nirvana
Here, the chapter analyzes nirvana. It explains nirvana as neither getting rid of afflictive emotions nor acquiring the phenomenon of purification. It is neither the nullification of the continuum of the aggregates, nor the existence of unchanging phenomena. It is neither the disintegration of what was before, nor the arising what was never before. Thus, this state is called nirvana.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Analysis of the Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination
The Buddha says that interdependence means the nature of unborn or non-arising phenomena. Non-Buddhists argue that if the Twelve Links teaching does not exist, does that not contradict the Buddha’s teaching on dependent arising? However, Nagarjuna refutes this by pointing out that it was not taught to be inherent but just like a dream. Due to wrong views, the other eleven aspects of interdependence exist one after another, leading to samsara.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Analysis of View
In this final chapter, too, the emphasis is on the non-existent nature of view. When some Buddhist proponents argue that there exist five aggregates which are the objects of viewing, Nagarjuna refutes their statement by pointing out that the existence of the five aggregates is only there in the conventional sense. In ultimate reality, nothing exists in its intrinsic nature. Progressively, all twenty-seven chapters of the Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way refute the inherent existence of every phenomenon, while respecting the conventional truth in the conventional sense.
Thus, this text is the root of all Madhyamika wisdom, which illuminates the meaning of ultimate suchness, clarifying the perfection of wisdom and leading beings to the precise and profound meaning of emptiness or shunyata.
By Padma Mani Translation Committee, NNI
