What If Madhyamaka Is a Stance? Reading Nāgārjuna with the Help of Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü and Bas van Fraassen

1. The Mādhyamika Predicament and Mabja's Response

In a central passage in chapter 13 of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna states that buddhas teach emptiness as deliverance from all views and that liberation, therefore, is precluded for "those whose view is emptiness" (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, XIII.8). Numerous passages in the Mahāyāna sūtras make the same point: treating śūnyatā as the content of a view (Skt. dṛṣṭi, Tib. lta ba) would be a betrayal of the principle itself. By constructing and holding on to a "view of emptiness," one would, in fact, be reinforcing those fabrications (Skt. prapañca, Tib. spros pa) that śūnyatā is precisely meant to overcome.¹

Obviously such statements constitute a serious challenge to those who treat commitment to the thesis that all phenomena are empty as a central tenet in a philosophical system (Skt. siddhānta, Tib. grub mtha'), that is, to many of those who consider themselves Mādhyamikas. How is one to cultivate and endorse an insight that is of such crucial soteriological importance and yet avoid the construction of a "view"? Perhaps we may say that in trying to make sense of this mystifying requirement, which is laid out in the sutras and accepted by the forefather of the school, there are traditionally two general avenues open to Mādhyamikas.

First, the arguments for emptiness may be seen purely as therapeutic against thought, concepts, and discursiveness and so as pointers toward a transcendental reality that can ultimately only be intuited. On this interpretation, Nāgārjuna's arguments are meant to expose the intrinsic, deep flaws of conceptuality and so encourage and facilitate a breakthrough (or a series of several, ascending breakthroughs) into the direct vision of the reality that lies beyond the mind's constructs. Hence, as all talk of emptiness is merely meant to fuel the deconstruction of errant conceptuality, such discourse does not come with any commitments of its own. How, then, could emptiness be a view that involves marks and characteristics, given that it is precisely that which brings an end to them all? While this approach may not openly get into the business of philosophy, choosing in general simply to criticize rather than affirm,² its proclamation of an ineffable, true condition beyond language and thought can be charged with incoherence. What, we may indeed ask, is the truth value of the sentence that declares ultimate reality to be beyond the reach of word and thought?

A second line of interpretation typically appeals to a two truths paradigm. Thus, it will be argued that while ultimately (Skt. paramārthatah., Tib. don dam par) no claim has any bearing, it is still both possible and necessary to provide a rich and informed account of the world as it seems to be; that is, of the conventional truth (Skt. saṃvṛtisatya, Tib. kun rdzob bden pa). In seeking to prove and defend the teaching of dependent origination and emptiness, this type of philosophically committed program is far more nuanced than a purely apophatic method, as it allows for the development of complex metaphysics and a multilayered epistemology. An approach of this type in this way displays a greater willingness to accept and engage with the world on the world's own premises, for it accepts and finds relevant a great number of the hows and whys that a quietist mysticism would otherwise simply seek to deflate and dissolve. It is obvious, however, that when such an edifice claims to account for and incorporate śūnyatā, it renders itself open to the charge of having made constructs (Skt. prapañca, Tib. spros pa) out of that which was meant to be their remedy, having missed the soteriological significance of śūnyatā, thus rendering it mere lip service.

The twelfth-century Mādhyamika, Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü (Tib. Mabja byang chub brtson 'grus),³ is among the earliest Tibetan interpreters of Candrakīrti (fl. seventh century). While Mabja is counted...