Nagarjuna’s Ontology: Relativism, Paradox at the Limits of Thought vs Consistent Unity of Emptiness and Dependent Arising

Abstract

The article contains a critical analysis of relativistic “readings” of Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK) – approaches in which emptiness is identified with dependent arising, and Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka appears as a synonym for relativity (Fyodor I. Shcherbatskoy, David J. Kalupahana, Shi Huifeng), emptiness – as an auxiliary means for purifying relative reality (Tao Jiang). Jay Garfield and Graham Priest, analyzing the emptiness of emptiness from the perspective of dialetheism, come to the conclusion about the existence of the ontological paradox of Nagarjuna, which means the identity of two realities – absolute and relative. Thus, Madhyamaka is reduced to relativism, albeit in a more subtle form, by considering the “true contradictions” at the limits of thought. The author of the article, relying on Tibetan texts (Heart Sutra, MMK, works of Aryadeva, Buddhapalita, Chandrakirti, Tsongkhapa), proves the fallacy of these attempts to ontologically relativize Madhyamaka. To understand the ontological specificity of Madhyamaka, it is important to understand both the difference between the two truths in this teaching and their specific unity as two ontological reverses of any object, and not as two realities or two domains of reality or two truths in the Western tradition.