For a backgrounder, please read my introductory post on Mahayana Buddhism.

Introduction

Shunyavadins were also called Madhyamikas meaning they identified themselves with the Middle Path realized by Buddha during his Nirvana. The Middle Path is named so not only because it avoids the extreme poles of existence–non-existence, affirmation–negation, eternalism–nihilism but chiefly because it transcends all these.

Shunya Misunderstood

The word Shunya literally means void, vacuum, desert, lack of, and nothing(ness). This has only made it easy for several scholars to misinterpret Shunyavada as a whole. Speaking of this, Chandradhar Sharma states,

Unfortunately, the word “Shunya” has been gravely misunderstood. The literal meaning of the word which is negation or void has been the cause of much misunderstanding. The word is used by the Madhyamikas in a different philosophical sense. Ignoring the real philosophical meaning… and taking it only in its literal sense, many thinkers… have unfortunately committed that horrible blunder which has led them …. to condemn it as a hopeless scepticism and a self-condemned nihilism.

At the other extreme, one can see this erroneous interpretation in contemporary (mostly) political discourse–and numerous other variants thereof–held as a lamp to extol Buddhism by calling it “modern,” “liberated,” and yes, “progressive.”

Pratityasamutpada

The key to Shunyavada lies as stated earlier, in Buddha’s Middle Path or Madhyama Pratipat. The Middle Path again is based on what one can term as the foundation of all of Buddha’s teachings: Pratityasamutpada or the Doctrine of Dependent Origination.

Broadly, Pratityasamutpada teaches that Reality has two aspects depending on the perspective one looks at it from: from the relative (i.e. phenomenal world) perspective it is Samsara (the material world, cycle of birth and death), from the absolute perspective, it is Nirvana. To quote Chandradhar Sharma,

It is relativity and dependent causation as well as the Absolute, for it is the Absolute itself which appears as relative and acts as the binding thread giving them unity and meaning.

Pratityasamutpada can formulaically be stated as This being, that arises or depending on the cause, the effect arises. Which means in the realm of the intellect, all objects of thought are relative.

And because it is relative, it is neither absolutely real (for it appears to arise) nor absolutely unreal (for it is subject to death).

This logically leads us to Buddha’s Madhyama Pratipat or the Middle Path as all phenomenal things hang between reality and nothingness and avoids both extremes. Hence Middle Path, which avoids both eternalism and nihilism.

And hence were Shunyavadins also (rightly) known as Madhyamikas who methodically elucidated the Middle Path Doctrine starting with the venerable philosopher-scholar Nagarjuna.

Shunyavada

Shunya as understood and explained by the Madhyamikas means Indescribable, that Reality is Indescribable. The terms used in the primary sources to denote this are Avachya and Anabhilapya both meaning Inexpressible. Shunya is described as such because it is beyond the grasp of the four categories of intellect. From the Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy:

…the Absolute is Indescribable because it is transcendental and no category of intellect can adequately describe it. Everything is Shunya: appearances are Svabhava Shunya or devoid of Ultimate Reality and Reality is Prapancha Shunya or devoid of plurality.

Thus you can neither deny existence nor affirm it, similarly you can neither deny non-existence nor affirm non-existence. If you for example, affirm non-existence, you automatically deny even the phenomenal reality of the world. The Shunyavadins criticize such advocates as nastikas or nihilists.

Shunyavada takes elaborate pains to describe Reality but using a technique that is similar to those familiar with Vedanta. This is described later in this piece. Most Shunyavadic treatises emphatically and unanimously condemn the use of intellect to understand Reality.

The Saddharma Pundarika Sutra says, Not knowing that in the reign of intellect, Relativity holds the sway, not knowing that everything phenomenal is dependent, not knowing that ‘this being, that arises’ (Ed: Pratityasamutpada) is the empirical law called Dependent Origination, people, like blind-born men, go on revolving in the wheel of Birth-and-Death that is Samsara. He who knows that all empirical Dharmas are Shunya…that there is neither bondage nor release, that all dharmas are absolutely equal, that in fact difference does not exist, knows the truth and attains the immortal blissful Nirvana.

According to the Astasasharika Prajnaparamita, no object of thought can resist ultimate scrutiny, that when taken to be ultimately real will be found self-contradictory.

The Lankavatara limits the function of the intellect as merely equipping one with discrimination and dualism, not Reality. The insightful verse goes thus: chatushkotikam cha mahamate lokavyavaharah and states that just as elephants are stuck in quicksand, so are these fools entangled in language, in letters, words, and names.

Nagarjuna’s Contribution

Nagarjuna’s path-breaking Madhyamika Karika opens vigorously with the proclamation of the famous Eight “Nos.” This is in line with the familiar Vedantic technique of explaining the nature of Brahman: the Netivada, which Shankara (re)popularized. The technique is based on refutation. An analogy is in order: how do you describe a cow to a person who has never seen one but has seen a buffalo? You begin to slowly refute all cow-unlike characteristics found in a buffalo–colour, quality of milk, etc– till your audience gets a fair idea of what a cow looks like. But then, the vital question still remains for your audience has not seen a cow at all. That question is answered only when he actually sees a cow.

Nagarjuna states, quoted from Chandradhar Sharma, that:

From the absolute standpoint, there is neither destruction nor production, neither nihilism nor eternalism, neither unity nor plurality, neither coming in nor going out. (anirodham anutpaadam anuchchhedam ashashvatam anekaartham anaanartham anaagamam anirgamam yah pratityasamutpaadam prapanchopashamam shivam)

It is again noteworthy that his approach is consistent with Buddha’s Middle Path. Nagarjuna elaborates (or departs from?) the Middle Path Doctrine by what can be called the Doctrine of No-Origination:

Never and nowhere can anything be produced. A thing can originate neither out of itself nor out of a not-self nor out of both nor out of neither. A thing cannot arise out of itself. If the effect is already existent in its cause, it is already an existing fact requiring no further production; if the effect does not exist in its cause, nothing can produce it for nothing can produce a hare’s horn or a barren woman’s son…. Again, to say that a thing can arise out of both itself and not-self is to maintain that light and darkness can remain together.

The effect-already-embodied-in-the-cause is an almost univeral declaration of all systems of Indian Philosophy. A famous analogy is worth recounting here. The pot already exists in the mud/clay. Thus it is incorrect to state that the pot is a new creation.

Nagarjuna’s method is also known as the Destructive Dialectic because it refutes as unreal every single aspect in the phenomenal world and the intellect which discerns these.

Summary

The nature of Reality that Shunyavada describes–in fact, Mahayana itself–is essentially the same as the Vedantic Brahman. The Netivada approach that Nagarjuna employs too is somewhat similar; only the language and (technical) terminology differ. The obvious question needs to be answered: if Shunyavada keeps refuting everything on the pretext that it is unreal, what then is Reality?

Reality as it says is Indescribable: it is to be realized by direct experience: It is the non-dual Absolute in which all plurality is merged.