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Origin of Madhyamika and its philosophy:

Madhyamika as system of Buddhist philosophy was presented by Nagarjuna who is supposed to have
lived in South India in the 2nd century AC. As a system of philosophy, the scholars agree, that it is greatly
indebted to the Prajnaparamita sutra for much of it philosophical content. The predominant team of
Prajnaparamita literature is that there is no change, no decay, no origination, no extinction, coming or
going, but all these are mere imagination of the ignorance. The doctrine of Dependent Origination is to
interpreted to mean relativity of all phenomena. The Prajnaparamita sutra emphasizes very much both the
non-substantiality of the person as well as the non-substantiality of the element. It is clearly seen that all
these ideas are admitted in Madhyamika.
However there are scholars who show that the fundamental of Madhyamika philosophy were anticipated
by much earlier Buddhist tradition. Thus the Catuskoti (four-fold alternative, the concept of sunyata, the
Pratitya Samutpada, rejection of both eternalism (atthita) and annihilation (natthita) are all found in early
Buddhism. This concept plays a major role in Madhyamika. Hence scholars are of opinions that
Madhyamika could be traced to early Buddhism. While many modern scholars considered Madhyamika to
be Mahayanic school of thought, there are some who, with justification, attempted to present Madhyamika
as a very successful and a legitimated attempt to interpret the original teaching of the Buddha.
The interpretation of Madhyamika depend on the approach adopted at interpreting it. There are 2 main
schools of interpretation of Madhyamika. One is called the Prasavgika and the other is Svatrantrika.
The Prasavgika refers to a method of debating. This is the method by which Nagarjuna refuses the views
of the opponents without proposing any view of his own. By rejecting a view showing its internal conflict,
Nagarjuna is considered as not presenting a view of his own. The English term for this kind of argument
reductio ad absurdum. (reduce to other men viewpoints to a absurdity). The Svatrantrika method means
rejecting the other views and putting forward ones own view.
The Sarvastivadin presented the theory of Svabhava which means the ones own nature of Dharma or
elements. They held that the Svabhava exist in all 3 period of time. In consequent of this, they also put
forward a theory of causality which amounted to what is called Satkaryavada that is the cause of the
theory which says that the effect is immanent in the course. Thus they almost accepted some sort of
substances which came under severe criticism of the Madhyamika. Similarly the causal theory of
Sautrantika who put forward the theory known as asatkaryavada that is the theory which said that the
cause and effect are not related, too came to be criticised by Nagarjuna.
In criticizing this substantiality view, Nagarjuna in his Mulamadhyamikakarika put forward the concept of
sunya, which forms his central concept. This concept of sunya is employed by Nagarjuna to mean that all
phenomena are empty of any substance or a thing. Thus his fundamental philosophy is no-thingness,
which mean all phenomena are empty of any substance, entity or soul or self. In doing this, he rejects the
two philosophies, eternalism and annihilationism. This is very clear from his acknowledgement of the
Buddhas sermon embodied in the Kaccayana gutta sutta of S.N. In this sutta, the Buddha says that he
without going to the two extremes, preached by the Middle. Ubho ante anupagamma majjhena
Tathagato dhammam deseti . He preaches by the middle is the same as Pratitya samutpada which also
forms the central teaching of Madhyamika, a school of thought. Nagarjuna in presenting the Madhyamika
philosophy very effectively uses the Pratitya Samutpada doctrine to establish the inter-dependent of all
phenomena and demonstrates the absence of any soul entity in the individual. In the Mulamadhyamika
Karika Nagarjuna presenting his view of Sunya with that of Pratityasamitpada says, Yah
pratityasamutpadah-sunyatam tam pracakmahe, sa prajnaptirupadaya pratipatsaiva madhyama If
anything is dependent originated we say thats is sunya. That also dependently originated convention and
that can be named as Madhyama pratipada. According to Nagarjuna things exist because there is a cause.
As long as there is cause there will be an effect. When the cause is elemenated there is no effect. So when
this does not exist there is no that. In that case everything is sunya. The first chapter of Madhyamikakarika
is called Pratyaya Pariksa (investigation of Pratyaya) where the cause (hetu) and effect (phala) is analyzed.

In fact he strongly emphasises the non-substantiality of dharma (elements).


Thus, Madhyamika emphasises both the Pudgala nairatmya and the Dharma nairatmya. In fact in
early Buddhism, it is pudgala nairatmya, that is very much emphasised. Beside pudgala nairatmya,
Madhyamika completely debunks this Sarvastivadins position. Though some scholars consider
Madhyamika as a criticism of early Theravada Buddhism and a negation of the theory of Paticca
samuppada. It really cannot be so. It is clearly seen that Nagarjuna begin his karika by saluting the
Buddha for preaching the doctrine of Paticca samuppada. This clearly show that Madhyamika is not a
critique of early Buddhism but a philosophical movement that aroused mainly against substantialism
that started with the Abhidhammika tradition and the climax with Sarvastivadins.
In doing this, he
rejects the two philosophies, eternalism and annihilism. This is very clear from his acknowledgement
of the Buddhas sermon embodied in the Kaccayana gutta sutta of S.N. In this sutta, the Buddha says
that he without going to the two extremes, preached by the Middle. Ubho ante anupagamma majjhena
Tathagato dhammam deseti. He preaches by the middle is the same as Pratitya samutpada which also
forms the central teaching of Madhyamika, a school of thought. In the Dhammadayada sutta of Mn I,
15, the Buddha says: this middle path is the cause to get rid of all the sinful Akusalas such as lobha,
dosa and to generate eye, knowledge and for the comprehension and realization of Nibbana.
Likewise, in many of the discourses, the Buddha expressed that the truth lies in the practice in Middle,
which has also been mentioned in the Madhyamika-karika of Nagarjuna: Yah pratitya samutpada
sunyatam tam madhyamahe; sa prajnaptirupadya pratipatsaiva madhyama if anything is
dependently originated, we say that is sunya (emptiness). This convention of sunyata becomes the
practice in Middle.
According to the Prajnaparamita literature Prajna means realization of Sunya, and in order to realize
that one has to devoid of the view of atman. In the early Buddhism it also found as having the same
sense as It is also employed to express the fact that there is no permanent, subjacent entity underlying
the phenomena of the world of sense-experience: sunnam idam attena va attaniyena va iti this, i.e.,
the world of object and subjects, is devoid of substance or anything that is substantial (M. I, 297).
There are in numerous instances of the use of sunna in sense of devoid of substance that can traced in
the early Buddhist texts:
sunno loko sunno loko ti bhante vuccati. Kittavata nu kno bhante sunno loko ti vuccati?
Yasma ca kho Ananda sunnam attena va attaniyena va. Tasma sunna loko ti vuccati[S.IV, 54]

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