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LATER BUDDHISTIC SCHOOLS
207 the most important outcome of Buddha's teaching and, at the same time, the most difficult to evaluate properly. The standpoint of the Madhyamika in regard to knowledge is altogether novel. So far we have seen that some aspect of common experience is assumed to be true, all the three schools having taken for granted the subject-series at least as real. The Madhyamika is quite revolutionary in his view and questions the validity of knowledge as a whole. He holds that if criticism of knowledge is necessary, it must be so in the case of all knowledge and that the validity of no part of it should be taken as self-evident. We commonly believe that we get into touch with reality through knowledge. When, however, we begin to inquire into the nature of this so-called reality, we discover that it is riddled with all sorts of self-discrepancies. Reflection at once shows its hollowness. 'No sooner are objects thought about than they are dissipated.': What for instance is the nature of a jar which appears to be given in knowledge? If we ask ourselves whether it is an aggregate of parts or a whole, we are not able to maintain either position satisfactorily. For if it be an aggregate of parts, it should eventually be an aggregate of atoms; and an aggregate of invisible atoms must necessarily be invisible. If to avoid this difficulty we assume it to be an integral whole over and above its constituents, we shall be at a loss to explain satisfactorily the relation between the two. Similarly we cannot describe what passes for a real thing as either existent or non-existent. If a jar always exists, it is difficult to see why it needs to be made; and the efficiency of its maker becomes superfluous. If on the other hand we assume that it is at one time non-existent and then comes into existence, we shall be predicating both existence and non-existence of the same object whose nature for that reason becomes unintelligible. The only escape from such difficulties is to regard objects as having no intrinsic character (nissvabhāva)-a position which is diametrically opposed to that of the Svabhāva-vāda (p. 104). The same argument is extended to vijñāna, and it is also dismissed as devoid of self-essence or as a thing which is not in itself. This line of
* Yatha yathärthāścintyante viširyante tatha tathā. SDS. p. 15.
