Property:Gloss-def
From Buddha-Nature
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‘Impermanence-impermanence’, one of four anulakṣaṇa-s of the<br>conditioned dharma-s. Its function is to cause the perishing of <br>anityatā/vyaya. — anulakṣaṇa. +
See Skt. ''nirātman, anātman, nirātman, nairātmya''; Tib. ''bdag med pa (nyid)'' +
See Skt. ''svabhāva'', Tib. ''rang bzhin/rang gi ngo bo nyid'' +
(a surface, intentional, meaning requiring hermeneutical interpretation in a further sense; the opposite of definitive meaning). See Skt. ''neyārtha'', Tib. ''drang ba'i don'' +
(of an inference). See Skt. ''svatantra'', Tib. ''rang rgyud (pa)'' +
kun rdzob +
Classical Madhyamaka thought was divided between Svātantrikas (Autonomists, who admitted the existence of the autonomous—''svatantra''—inference) and the Prāsaṅgikas (Apagogists, who did not). +
Skt. ''madhyamā pratipat'', Tib. ''dbu ma'i lam''. One of the oldest and most important of the central ideas in Buddhism, the Middle Way has fundamental practical and ethical as well as religious and philosophical dimensions. For Madhyamaka thought, the link between the Middle Way, Emptiness (''śūnyatā''), and origination/production in dependence (''pratītyasamutpāda'') is stated in ''MMK'' xxiv. 18: "Origination in dependence is what we call Emptiness; it is a relative concept/designation, and just this is the Middle Way" (''yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaḥ śūnyatāṃ tāṃ pracakṣmahe/sā prajñaptir upādāya pratipat saiva madhyamā''//; for ''prajñaptir upādāya'' the Tib. has ''brten nas gdags pa''). In this verse, the demonstrative pronoun ''sā'' in ''pāda'' c may refer either to ''śūnyatā'' in ''pāda'' b (as indicated in PPMV, p. 504.8) or to ''pratītyasamutpāda'' in ''pāda'' a (as suggested by PPMV. p. 504.14-15, with the gender of the pronoun being attracted to its feminine predicate ''prajñaptiḥ''-, cf. Apte, ''Student's guide to Sanskrit composition'' § 24); cf. ''Literature of the Madhyamaka school of philosophy in India'', p. 17n39. In MMK xxiv.36 there is found the compound ''pratītyasamutpādaśūnyatā''. Nāgārjuna's autocommentary on W 70 refers to Emptiness, origination in dependence, and the Middle Way as equivalent (''yaḥ śūnyatāṃ pratītyasamutpādaṃ madhyamaṃ pratipadaṃ ca/ ekārthāṃ nijagāda praṇamāmi tam apratimabuddham''//). The equivalence of the first two items is stated in ''Lokātītastava'' 22 and ''Acintyastava'' 40. —In his comment on ''MMK'' xxiv.18, Candrakīrti specifies (p. 504.14-15) that ''śūnyatā'' (which is ''svabhāvānutpattilakṣaṇā''), ''upādāya prajñaptiḥ'', and ''madhyamā pratipat'' are special appellations (''viśeṣasaṃjñā'' = ''ming gi bye brag'') precisely for ''pratītyasamutpāda''; cf. ''PPMV'' xxiv. 13. And he explains (p. 504) that the concept and linguistic designation of an entity such as "cart" (''ratha'': ''aṅgin'') is employed relatively (''upādāya'') to its parts (''aṅga'') such as its wheels: there is indeed no origination of any entity through hypostatized self-existence (''svabhāvenânutpattiḥ''. The idea of a "cart" being conceptually (and as it were metonymically) constructed relatively to (i.e., on the base of) its component parts is regularly employed in our sources as an example in order to deconstruct the postulated concept of a ''pudgala'' or ''ātman'' (see e.g., ''MA(Bh'') vi. 120ff., 135, 151-61). According to ''PPMV'' xviii.I (p, 344.10-11), persons who fail to understand ''upādāya-prajñapti'' do not comprehend that ''ātman'' is nāmamātraka = ''ming tsam zhig'' "mere name." In ''PPMV'' x.16 there is found the expression ''upādānena prajñapyate'' "[an ''ātman''] is designated through [its] appropriated base," (this formula being accordingly a gloss on the expression ''upādāya prajñaptiḥ''). Candrakīrti explains there that pratītyasamutpāda free from the twin extremes of the eternal and destruction is termed ''upādāya-prajñapti''. —The four expressions ''pratītyasamutpāda'', ''śūnyatā'', ''upādāya prajñaptiḥ'', and ''madhyamā pratipat'' are not synonyms in the sense that they could meaningfully be substituted one for the other in any context; but they are nonetheless said to be equivalent in the sense that they are so to say co-functional in Madhyamaka thought. (They might even be said to be co-referential provided that their "referent" is not taken to be a hypostatized selfexistent entity.) They may be co-functional in the following way. (1) The expression ''pratītyasamutpāda'' denotes the fact that all conditioned things (''saṃskṛta'') originate in dependence on causes and conditions so that they lack any independent aseitic existence (''svabhāva'') whatsoever, and it thus refers (indirectly) to non-substantiality (''niḥsvabhāvatā = śūnyatā''), for which it provides a reason. (2) The expression ''śūnyatā'' refers (directly) to this ''niḥsvabhāvatā'' of all things—conditioned (''samskṛta'') and unconditioned (''asamskṛta'')—the relevant full expression being ''svabhāvaśūnyatā''. (3)''Upādāya prajñaptiḥ'' would also engage ''niḥsvabhāvatā'' to the extent that, the concept/designation being relative, it can by itself have no truly independent status—no referent having real self-existence—just as a whole (''avayavin, aṅgin =yan lag can'', e.g., a cart) and the component parts (''avayava, aṅga =yan lag'', e.g., wheels, etc.) that make up this (conceptual) whole "cart" are interrelated and hence relative to each other. And (4) the expression ''madhyamā pratipat'' is the Way that eschews the twin extremes of existence and non-existence—substantialism and nihilism—(see the canonical sūtra for Kātyāyana) without, however, itself constituting some fixed intermediate position in which installation might be possible (see ''Samādhirājasūtra'' ix.27) and on which one might mentally fixate (see ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' ix.37). Being in this way as it were co-functional in Madhyamaka thought, the expressions in question are said to be equivalent in MMK xxiv. 18 and in many parallel passages in Madhyamaka literature. In sum, the four expressions all have the function of "showing" in a meaningful way the dependent origination and hence the non-substantiality of all things, the fundamental principle of Madhyamaka thought.
a representative of the line of Madhyamaka thought connected with Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti. See Skt. ''prāsaṅgika'', Tib. ''thal 'gyur ba'' +
See dependence, origination in —. +
See Skt. ''jñāna'', Tib. ''ye shes'' +
(L. Wittgenstein's ''Familienähnlichkeit''; a polythetic relation, as opposed to the monothetic) +
See Tib. ''bden par grub pa'' = ''bden grub'' +
a representative of the line of Madhyamaka thought going back to Bhā(va)-viveka/Bhavya. See Skt. ''svātantrika'', Tib. ''rang rgyud pa'' +
A mode of thinking and expression linked in particular with certain sūtras teaching the ''tathāgatagarbha'', with the ''Ratnagotravibhāga-Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra'', and with Nāgārjuna's "Hymnic Corpus" (Tib. ''bstod tshogs''). +
The set of four positions in terms of which a reified entity might conceivably be postulated and defined. All of these positions and their corresponding statements have been negated by Nāgārjuna and his followers, who did not posit any such substantial entity (without the interpretation of this ''prasajya''-type negation having to depend on an intuitionist or paraconsistent logic); see the entry "negation" above. Cf. D. Seyfort Ruegg, ''Three studies'', pp. 109-12 (note 5), 139-47. See Skt. ''catuṣkoṭi'', Tib. ''mu bzhi'' +
In Madhyamaka thought the vexed question of the exact role and status of a thesis has been the object of much reflection and discussion; see D. Seyfort Ruegg, ''Three studies'', sections II and III. See Skt. ''pratijñā'', Tib. ''dam bca'' +
(the "relative" or "conventional," said of discursive linguistic usage). See Skt. ''vyāvahārika'', Tib. ''tha snyad pa''. Cf. Surface, Surface Reality, ''saṃvṛti(satya)'' +
See Reality of Absolute/ultimate Meaning/Sense; Absolute/ultimate Meaning/Sense; and Skt. ''paramārthasatya'', Tib. ''don dam pa'i bden pa''. Compare Surface Reality, ''saṃvṛtisatya'', often rendered as "Surface Truth," "conventional truth" or "relative truth." (As noted above, since here there is no truth in the current philosophical usage of the word, the rendering of ''satya'' by "truth" is conventional.) +
(the fact of being) without self-existence (''svabhāva'') (said of all things, Skt. ''dharma''). See Skt. ''niḥsvabhāva'', ''anātman'', ''nirātman'', ''nairātmyā'' Tib. ''bdag med pa (nyid'') (literally "Selfless [ness]") +
