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Buddhist Philosophy
[CH.
may search we find the five skandhas but no self. Moreover if the soul is a unity it cannot undergo any process or progression, for that would presuppose that the soul abandons one character and takes up another at the same identical moment which is inconceivable1.
But then again the question arises that if there is no process, and no cycle of worldly existence of thousands of afflictions, what is then the nirvāṇa which is described as the final extinction of all afflictions (kleśa)? To this the Madhyamaka reply is that it does not agree to such a definition of nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa on the Madhyamaka theory is the absence of the essence of all phenomena, that which cannot be conceived either as anything which has ceased or as anything which is produced (aniruddham anutpannam). In nirvana all phenomena are lost; we say that the phenomena cease to exist in nirvāṇa, but like the illusory snake in the rope they never existed. Nirvana cannot be any positive thing or any sort of state of being (bhava), for all positive states or things are joint products of combined causes (samskṛta) and are liable to decay and destruction. Neither can it be a negative existence, for since we cannot speak of any positive existence, we cannot speak of a negative existence either. The appearances or the phenomena are communicated as being in a state of change and process coming one after another, but beyond that no essence, existence, or truth can be affirmed of them. Phenomena sometimes appear to be produced and sometimes to be destroyed, but they cannot be determined as existent or non-existent. Nirvana is merely the cessation of the seeming phenomenal flow (prapañcapravṛtti). It cannot therefore be designated either as positive or as negative for these conceptions belong to phenomena (na căpravṛttimātram bhavabhäveti parikalpitum paryyate evam na bhavabhavanirvāṇam, M.V. 197). In this state there is nothing which is known, and even the knowledge that the phenomena have ceased to appear is not found. Even the Buddha himself is a phenomenon, a mirage or a dream, and so are all his teachings3.
It is easy to see that in this system there cannot exist any bondage or emancipation; all phenomena are like shadows, like the mirage, the dream, the māyā, and the magic without any real nature (niḥsvabhava). It is mere false knowledge to suppose that 2 Ibid. p. 194.
1 See Madhyamikavṛtti (B.T.S.), pp. 101-102. 3 Ibid. pp. 162 and 201.
