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Identifying the Object of Negation and the Status of Conventional Truth: Why the dGag Bya Matters So Much to Tibetan Madhyamikas

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posted on 2023-05-22, 13:28 authored by Garfield, JL, Sonam ThakchoeSonam Thakchoe

Emptiness is the emptiness of intrinsic existence. It is, according to all of Nāgārjuna's canonical commentators in India and in Tibet, a negation and, more specifically, an external negation. To say that the statement,

(1) This person is empty of this intrinsic nature.

        is a negation is to say that it is logically equivalent to

(2) This person does not have this intrinsic nature.

     But that statement in turn is ambiguous. We could read the negation internally and paraphrase as follows:

(3) This person's intrinsic nature is not this.

        Or we could read it externally and paraphrase thus:

(4) It is not the case that a person has this intrinsic nature.

No matter how much they affirm or deny the reality of that which is conventional, Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka, and Candrakīrti (as well as both Tsongkhapa and Gorampa, whose dispute regarding the import of this point will occupy most of this chapter) agree that (4) is the correct paraphrase of (1).

History

Publication title

Moonshadows: conventional truth in Buddhist philosophy

Editors

The Cowherds

Pagination

73-87

ISBN

978-0-19-975143-3

Department/School

School of Humanities

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Place of publication

New York

Extent

14

Rights statement

Copyright 2011 Oxford University Press

Repository Status

  • Restricted

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