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F. W. Thomas, Mallisena's Syādvadamañjarī
Moreover, this non-actuality of knower, etc., must, of course, by the maintainer of emptiness be taken as an entity (a fact, vastu). And this he presumes from Demonstration, or from non-Demonstration. Not from non-Demonstration, to begin with, because that effects nothing. Or from Demonstration: that is not so. A Demonstrant causing apprehension of a non-entity would be conventional 33), or non-conventional. If conventional, how is there from that. a non-real, establishment of the emptiness doctrine as real. And, that being thus unestablished), we get an actual reality of the entire usage concerning the knower, etc. Or, if (153) the Demonstrant causing apprehension thereof is itself non-conventional, then there is an end to the claim for non-reality of the usage concerning the knower, etc., because that (proof) itself is an exception. So this on both alternatives, on the principle of "on the one side the tiger, on the other the precipice"34), in ultimate truth the contradiction with the establishment of their own views is patent. This is the meaning of the verse.
118
*) tadasiddhau ka ha Das; tatha AMP.
33) On samurti, convention', and sumurta, conventional', see page 112 n. 1, and de la Vallée-Poussin, Madhyamaka-vṛtti, p. 492, n. 2.
34) See Col. Jacob, A third handful of popular Maxims, p. 26.
