Parinamavada

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INTRODUCTION

A difficulty faced by any philosophical system which
makes the denial of self one of its cornerstones is
to explain how this denial can be intelligible,
since it seems to presuppose the existence of the
self whose existence is being denied. In this paper
I shall explain how Candrakiirti, a
Praasa^ngika-Maadhyamika Buddhist who flourished in
India sometime between the end of the sixth century
A. D. and the beginning of the seventh, deals with
this problem in the very process of presenting his
proof that there is no self. The proof occurs in the
Introduction to the Middle Way,(1) a work he seems
to have composed as a supplement to Naagaarjuna's
famous Treatise on the Middle Way, which was
probably composed In the second century A.D.
Candrakiirti's proof, I hope to make clear, is not
unintelligible, since it involves at least two
different conceptions of self, one whose existence
is being denied and another whose existence is
presupposed by the denial of the existence of the
first, To avoid confusion, the self whose existence
Candrakiirti means to deny I shall henceforth call
the Self, while the self whose existence he thinks
is presupposed by this denial I shall call either
the self or the person.(2) Candrakiirti, in other
words, avoids the problem of the intelligibility of
the denial of self by distinguishing the Self to be
denied from the self or person who denies it. There
is no contradiction or paradox in the denial that
the self is not a Self.

Maadhyamikas are Buddhist philosophers who claim
that the ultimate reality(3) of any phenomenon(4) is
its absence of ultimate or real existence, that is,
existence it possesses by itself.(5) This school of
philosophers was founded by Naagaarjuna, who denied
the independent or separate existence of all
phenomena, including self, in order to forge a true
middle way(6) between the extremes of asserting
their ultimate or real existence and denying their
conventional or nominal existence, (7) that is,
existence they do not possess by themselves but in
dependence on conventions or on the names assigned
to phenomena on the basis of conventions.
Praasa^ngika-Maadhyamikas are Buddhist philosophers
who establish this middle way in the minds of their
opponents solely by drawing consequences(8) from
their opponents' views in accord with criteria of
validity and soundness accepted by their opponents
as existent by their own natures.(9) They are
contrasted in this respect to the
Svaatantrika-Maadhyamikas, who believe that this
middle way may also be established in the minds of
opponents by the use of inferences which are
independent(10) in the sense that their validity and
soundness can be established in the minds of both
themselves and their opponents by reference to
criteria which can be found by both parties to exist
by their own natures, even though these criteria
only conventionally exist. The Praasa^ngikas deny
that the validity and soundness of inferences can be
established in this way because they claim chat
nothing can exist by its own nature if all phenomena
only conventionally or

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nominally exist. What exists by its own nature, they
claim, must exist by itself.

Candrakiirti's Introduction to the Middle Way is
a supplement to Naagaarjuna's Treatise on the Middle
Way in the sense of giving topics only briefly
discussed in it a more extensive treatment from the
Praasa^ngika-Maadhyamika point of view. It is
composed for the most part of verses which explain
the ten stages of spiritual discipline through which
the aspirant to Buddhahood must pass to achieve his
goal. Candrakiirti explains the dominant practices
in each stage and what must be achieved in each in
order to enter into the next. In the sixth stage,
the practice of wisdom is dominant, and as part of
his explanation of its practice Candrakiirti
presents arguments which can be used by meditators
to help them cognize the ultimate reality of
phenomena in general and persons in particular.

His full discussion of the means by which the
ultimate reality of persons can be cognized
encompasses verses 120-178. Only in verses 110-150,
however, does he present the actual argument itself.
Verses 151-178 he seems to have composed primarily
to clarify this argument, and especially to check
the tendency of the reader to conclude from the
argument that there is no conventionally existent
self, a nihilistic result which conflicts with the
doctrine of ultimate reality he espouses. I shall
directly discuss only verses 120-150, but the import
of verses 151-178 for the interpretation of verses
120-150 will be integrated into my discussion.

The overall purpose of Candrakiirti's discussion
is to show the meditator how to arrive at an
inferential understanding of the ultimate reality of
the self without falling into the extremes of
understanding it to have real existence or of
believing it to lack even nominal existence. The
ultimate reality of a person, he believes, is the
person's emptiness or absence of independent
existence.(11) This simply means that a person does
not exist by himself or by his own nature, apart
from everything else.

According to the non-Praasa^ngika philosophical
schools of Indian Buddhism by contrast, the ultimate
reality of the person is his absence of being
independently existent in the limited sense of being
an entity which exists apart from the mind-body
aggregates.(12) Candrakiirti claims that this is not
the ultimate reality of the person which we must
perceive in order to achieve liberation. since the
misconception of ourselves as not independently
existent in this limited way is not the inborn
misconception which contaminates our actions and
thereby perpetuates our rebirth in the worlds of
suffering. He argues that when the person is
exhaustively analyzed to find a Self, something
independently existent in the full sense, it cannot
be found. Even so, he believes that the person does
conventionally exist in the sense that he is
distinguished from other things according to the
nonanalytical. conventional elaboration of the
things that are, and that he is the self which
denies the existence of the Self. This is a self
which is projected by thought into the mind-body
aggregates when they are perceived, and it only
nominally exists in the sense that it is an
imputation of thought to which a name is assigned on
the basis of convention.

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This self, however, appears to our
nonanalytical, convention-bound consciousness, which
cannot discern its ultimate reality, as separately
existent, and on the basis of our beginningless
acquaintance with this appearance we have an inborn
belief that the self exists the way it appears to
exist. Because the person appears to exist in this
way to our obscured minds, he is called a
conventional reality.(13) His ultimate reality
directly appears only to an unobscured ultimate
consciousness which becomes manifest after extensive
practice of meditation. This consciousness is
ultimate not in the sense that it ultimately exists,
but in the sense that it is a conventionally
existent nondual perception of ultimate reality.

The aim of the reasoning which establishes the
ultimate reality of the self is to destroy, in
conjunction with a highly developed power of
concentration, (14) our innate belief in the
independent existence of the person, who is a
conventional reality, rather than our belief in the
conventional existence of this reality, since it is
this belief which perpetuates our rebirth. The
appearance of the conventionally existent self as
independently existent is not destroyed by this
means, for whenever we perceive the mind-body
aggregates, the idea of a self or person arises, and
when it arises it must appear to us to exist by
itself. Since it is only our deepseated belief that
this self exists independently that causes us to
take rebirth, there is no need to destroy this
appearance of independent existence in order to
escape rebirth. The conventionally real self that
has directly perceived its own ultimate reality will
thus continue to appear to itself as independently
existent when it is not perceiving its own ultimate
reality. but it will no longer assent to this
appearance.

CANDRAKIIRTI'S ANALYSIS OF THE SELF

Candrakiirti introduces the reasoning by which the
ultimate reality of the person is revealed with a
statement of its purpose:

Verse 120

Having realized that all mental afflictions and
suffering without exception arise from the belief in
Self(15) and having realized the object of this
belief to be a Self the yogi undertakes a refutation
of [the existence of] a Self.


The belief in self is our inborn belief that we are
independently existent persons. The real object of
this belief is the dependently arising self or
person who is falsely believed to exist
independently, and the Self whose existence is to be
refuted is the apparent object of the belief. an
independently existent self.

Among the three most basic kinds of afflictions
of the mind, which are attachment, anger, and
delusion, the most basic is delusion, and the most
fundamental delusion is the belief in self, because
all other afflictions and sufferings arise from it.
Thought projects a self image or idea onto the
mindbody aggregates when they are perceived, and
because the projected selfappears to exist by itself
rather than as a mere projection, the delusion
occurs that it independently exists, that is to say,
that it is a Self. The Buddhist meditator or

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yogin, therefore, wishes to destroy this delusion,
and to arrive at this goal he sets out to prove that
there is no Self. The refutation of the independent
existence of the self or person is called the proof
of the Selflessness of the person.(16)

Candrakiirti's proof of the Selflessness of the
person is an elaborate version of an argument
presented by Naagaarjuna in the first verse of
chapter eighteen of the Treatise. The argument is
that if the person independently exists, he would be
either really different from or really the same as
his mind-body aggregates, but since he is neither,
he does not independently exist. The proof that the
self is not really different from the aggregates is
the first of the reasonings Candrakiirti employs,
and the proof that it is not really the same as the
aggregates is the second. Although he includes five
other sets of reasonings for the sake of refuting
the existence of a self which is related to the
aggregates as being present in them, as being
something in which they are present, as possessing
them, as being a composite of them, or as being
their shape or configuration, the existence of a
self which enters into any of these relations is
also refuted by this basic argument, since, if the
self enters into one of these relations, it must be
related to the aggregates as different from them or
as the same as them, regardless of what further
specification of the relation between the two is
given.

If the self and the aggregates were really
different, the one could be conceived without
relying on the other, and if they were really the
same, they would be conceived to have all the same
attributes. But since the self and the mind-body
aggregates cannot be conceived in either of these
ways, the self cannot be a real entity; and since
the self cannot be a real entity (that is, a Self),
Candrakiirti says, in verse 163, that it does not
really possess attributes or stand in real relations
to other things. It is ultimately for this reason,
of course, that self is not found in analysis to
stand in any of the five relations to the aggregates
in which it is commonly thought to stand.

In verses 121-125 Candrakiirti basically argues
that if the self exists apart from the aggregates,
as taught by the Saa^mkhyas, Vai`se.sikas, and
others, it could be identified and described without
reference to the aggregates, but of course it
cannot. He also claims that since the existence of
the self they espouse is not imputed on the basis of
the mind-body aggregates, it does not even
conventionally exist. The self taught by the
proponents of these systems, from the point of view
of the Buddhist analysis of phenomena, must be an
unchanging phenomenon, since all changing phenomena
are included within the classification of phenomena
as the mind-body aggregates. If it is an unchanging
phenomenon. however, either it does not exist at
all, like a barren woman's child, or it is an
unchanging phenomenon like space or the cessation of
suffering. However. it cannot be an existent
unchanging phenomenon, since it could not then
undergo suffering in the three worlds, perceive and
enjoy objects, and so forth, things which a self by
definition can do.

The existence of a self of this sort has to be
refuted, according to Candrakiirti.

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because some have been taught the belief that it is
the self; but it is not the Self whose existence we
need to refute in order to destroy our afflictions,
for countless beings who have never believed that
the self exists apart from the mind-body aggregates
are nevertheless afflicted by reason of the belief
in Self.

Since it is clear that there is no self which
exists apart from the aggregates, some Buddhists,
among whom Candrakiirti identifies at least the
Sammatiiyas, have concluded that one or all of the
mind-body aggregates must be the self. These
Buddhists, whom I shall call the Buddhist realists,
believe that the person, who is the object of the
belief in Self, is actually the same as the
aggregate or aggregates on the basis of which the
idea of self arises, and that the Selflessness of
the person is his lack of existence apart from this
aggregate or these aggregates.

In verses 121-141 Candrakiirti discusses this
view and its variants in order to help establish the
ultimate reality of the self, to refute the
realistic theory of self espoused by these
Buddhists, and to show that their view of
Selflessness is not the view we need to realize if
we are to achieve liberation. Since the Buddhist
realists support their views by reference to
scriptures, Candrakiirti will attempt to refute them
not only on the basis of the absurd consequences for
their own realistic systems of thought, but also on
the basis of the Buddha's statements in scripture.
According to these Buddhists,

Verse 126

Because no self can be shown to exist apart from the
aggregates the self conceived is the mind-body
aggregates themselves.

However,

Some hold that the basis of the belief in Self is
all five aggregates and others hold that its basis
is consciousness alone.

In the first part of verse 127 Candrakiirti argues
that if the mind-body aggregates or consciousness
alone were the self, the self would be many things
rather than the one thing it is, since there are
five mind-body aggregates and the aggregate of
consciousness itself is comprised of six distinct
types of consciousness. That the self must be one
thing numerically seems to be taken to be true not
only on the basis of the conventional conception of
self, but also because we experience ourselves as
one entity rather than as many. This consequence,
therefore, applies not only to the Buddhist
realists, but to all of us who identify ourselves
with our bodies and minds and conceive them to
possess real existence. In the same verse
Candrakiirti points out that if the aggregates or
consciousness were the same as the self, belief in a
self that is substantially existent(17) could not
be, as these Buddhists believe, an error, since they
say that the aggregates substantially exist and if
the self really is the same as them, it too must
substantially exist.

In verse 128 Candrakiirti presents four more
absurd consequences of their view, each of which is
to lead them, on the basis of their own system of
thought, to an inferential cognition of the
nonexistence of a person who is the same as one

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or more of the aggregates. On their view, he claims,
it follows that the self would actually perish when
it achieves liberation, since they believe that the
aggregates cease to exist at that time; that the
self would be a really different self from moment to
moment, since they believe that the aggregates,
which lose and then renew their existence at every
moment, are really different from moment to moment;
that the self's actions could not really produce
results, since the aggregates cannot do so by reason
of their real momentary character; and that the
effects of the actions performed by the self would
be experienced by a really different self, since
they believe that the aggregates are really
different aggregates from moment to moment.

On Candrakiirti's own view, the self is
impermanent, but its impermanence is simply a
convention, while for these realists, the
aggregates, and hence, the self, are impermanent by
their own natures. An impermanent self which does
not really exist does not suffer these same absurd
consequences, since it is not really different from
moment to moment.

Should it be replied to the last three of the
objections stated in verse 128 that, although the
aggregates are really different from moment to
moment, as a whole they constitute a continuum which
really exists, in verse 129 Candrakiirti alludes to
an earlier refutation of their real existence as a
continuum. The refutation is that since a real
continuum requires a real relation to exist between
its serial members, but no such relations, on their
own view, can exist between one set of aggregates
and another, there can be no real continuum of the
aggregates. He concludes, therefore, that the view
that the self is one or more of the aggregates is
mistaken.

In verses 130-131 he shows the consequences of
their view of self for their view of Selflessness.
In verse 130 he argues that if the person is the
same as the aggregates or consciousness, then since
these Buddhists believe that the meditator perceives
the Selflessness of the person, they must hold that
he perceives the nonexistence of the aggregates or
consciousness, even though they hold that the
aggregates and consciousness really exist. In verse
131 he adds the criticism that if they answer that
it is the nonexistence of an eternal governing
spirit which is perceived. then they cannot claim
that it is the ultimate reality of the self they
perceive, since the nonexistence of an eternal
spirit is not, on their own view, the ultimate
reality of the aggregates. It follows, moreover,
that since they will not perceive the ultimate
reality of the self, they will not eliminate the
mental afflictions by using this meditation.

Candrakiirti next discusses the scriptural
evidence for the realistic view against which he
argues:

Verse 132

If one claims that the aggregates are the self
because the master claimed that they are the self,
did he not say this to deny a self which exists
apart from them? For in other scriptures he denied
that the aggregates are the self.

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Verse 133

Because, in brief, he claimed in other scriptures
that neither form, nor feeling, nor discrimination,
nor motivational forces, nor consciousness is the
self, he cannot have held that the aggregates are
the self.

When the Buddha said that the aggregates are the
self, according to Candrakiirti, he was not
explaining how to meditate on the ultimate reality
of the self, but how to refute non-Buddhist views of
the self. In this context, to avoid confusing the
non-Buddhists, who are not prepared to understand
that the self does not really exist, he equated the
self with the aggregates. But when the Buddha denied
that the five aggregates are the self, he was
speaking in the context of establishing the ultimate
reality of the self.

At this point Candrakiirti has set out reasoning
sufficient to generate in the minds of those who are
intelligent an understanding of the ultimate reality
of a person. However, those who find it difficult to
comprehend a self that does not really exist may
grasp at the independent existence of the self, as
identified somehow with the aggregates, by
qualifying its identity with them in various ways.
In verses 134-141. therefore, Candrakiirti refutes
variants of the view that the self is the same as
the aggregates. The reasonings he uses, moreover.
help us to refine our understanding of the actual
object of the belief in Self.

In verse 134 Candrakiirti says that when the
Buddha identified the aggregates with the self (for
the purpose stated above) he was not stating that
the self is the essence of the aggregates, but that
the composite of the aggregates is the self. He
could not have meant that this is the self,
therefore, since a composite of the aggregates is
not just one thing which can perform the functions
of a self. Since some Buddhists, apparently, held
the view that the self is all of the aggregates
together as a whole of this sort which is not
different from its parts, Candrakiirti here argues
that the self cannot be such a composite. The basis
upon which he refutes this possibility is
fundamentally the same as that used to refute the
identification of the self with the aggregates: many
things cannot be one thing.

In the first part of verse 135 he adds the
criticism that if the mere composite of the
aggregates could be the self, the composite of the
parts of a chariot placed in a pile could then be a
chariot, which is absurd. In the second part of the
verse he makes a different, even more fundamental,
point:

Verse 135 c, d

The scriptures say that the self is dependent on the
aggregates. Therefore, the mere composite of the
aggregates is not the self.

The full argument is that since the composite of the
aggregates is the basis in dependence upon which the
belief in Self arises, the object of the belief in
Self, that is, the person himself, cannot be the
composite. In his commentary on this verse
Candrakiirti explains what he means with an analogy.
The collection of atoms which make up a color. he
says, may be the basis upon which the belief in

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that color arises, but it is not the object of that
belief. The actual object of the belief is the color
itself, a sensible appearance which "covers" the
collection of atoms as a result of the perceptual
process. Similarly, the projected self is not the
composite of aggregates "covered" by this projection
as a result of the conceptual process, but the
"covering" itself, a mental image which exists in
dependence on the perception of the aggregates. This
confusion between the basis upon which the belief in
self arises and the actual object of the belief, it
seems, lies at the heart of the confusion of the
self with the aggregates, and calling attention to
the dependent relation between the self and the
aggregates can help the reader to refine his
understanding of the self whose apparent independent
existence is to be refuted. It is at this point,
moreover. that Candrakiirti first introduces the
notion of the conventionally existent self which
dependently exists, and hence begins to make it
clear that this type of self is not being denied.

The Buddhist realists, of course, have a reason
for identifying the self with one or more of the
aggregates, They believe that since the self does
not exist apart from the aggregates, it must be the
aggregates somehow, either the composite of all of
its parts or one of the parts or perhaps the
configuration of the composite of the parts.
Otherwise, they claim, the self does not exist at
all, According to Candrakiirti, these Buddhists have
failed to understand that the nature of a merely
conventionally existent self is to be neither
different from nor the same as the aggregates. since
it is not a phenomenon by itself, but only in
relation to the mind which projects it and the
aggregates upon which it is projected.

In verse 136 Candrakiirti discusses a second
attempt to save the view that the self is the
aggregates, In response to the rejection of a self
which is the composite of the aggregates, it may be
claimed that the composite is the self insofar as it
assumes a certain configuration or shape, just as
the composite of the parts of a chariot is a chariot
insofar as they are assembled into a certain shape.
There is no self of this sort, Candrakiirti argues,
because only the aggregate of form or bedy has shape
or configuration. Hence, if this view is correct,
form or body rather than the mental aggregates would
then be the self, but this is absurd. Although we
may often confuse a person with his body, a person,
from the conventional point of view, is not thought
to be his body alone, In verses 153-157 Candrakiirti
also argues that not even a chariot is the same as
the configuration of its parts, which in fact is
merely the basis upon which the idea of a chariot
arises.

In verse 137 Candrakiirti concludes that all
attempts to identify the self with the aggregates,
either by themselves or as a composite or as the
shape of the composite, conflict with the Buddhist
doctrine that the self attaches itself to the
aggregates, for the self must then be an agent
acting on its patient, the aggregates. and an agent
and its patient cannot be the same. If these
Buddhists should reply, on doctrinal grounds, that
they can be the same because there are no real
agents, and only a real patient exists in this case,
Candrakiirti points nut that patients cannot he
conceived to exist apart from agents. Here he relies
on the Maadhyamika view of the nature of
conventionally existent things, according to

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which they do not exist just by themselves, but only
as imputed in dependence on their bases of
imputation, which are themselves merely
conventionally existent. In this case, the existence
of a patient is imputed in dependence on the
existence of an agent being imputed, and if there is
no agent, there can be no patient.

Candrakiirti summarizes his argument against the
Buddhist realists as follows:

Verse 138

Since the lord posited a self which exists in
dependence on the six elements, earth, water, fire,
air, mind, and space, and the six bases of contact,
the eye organ, etc.,

Verse 139

And said that its existence depends on our having
perceived consciousness and mental states, the self
is not the same as these things nor is it a
composite of them. So they are not the object of the
belief in Self.

Here he makes explicit his basic criticism of the
Buddhist realists, that they have confused the bases
upon which thought imputes a self with the imputed
self, the object of the belief in Self.

Candrakiirti then concludes his examination of
Buddhist realism in verses 140-141, where he shows
the confusion to which it leads about what is to be
refuted in meditation on the Selflessness of the
person. In verse 140 he expresses amazement at those
who are thus driven to hold the view that they
abandon the belief in Self by refuting the existence
of a permanent self, which exists apart from the
aggregates. In verse 141 he likens their situation
to seeing a snake (that is, the self which is the
impermanent aggregates), experiencing fear (that is,
having the belief in Self), and then trying to calm
one's fear (that is, to destroy the belief in Self)
by arguing that the snake is not an elephant (that
is. the impermanent self is not a permanent self).
If their view is correct, to destroy the belief in
Self they would need to prove that the aggregates do
not exist, but instead they argue that a Permanent
self, which is not the basis upon which the "belief
in Self'' arises, does not exist. Moreover, they
themselves believe that the aggregates really exist.

Having established that the self is neither
really different from the aggregates nor really the
same as them, either straightforwardly or in any of
the above modes. in verses 142-143 Candrakiirti
considers three common ways in which the self is
conceived to be related to the aggregates. It has
been thought that the self is present in the
aggregates, that it is that in which the aggregates
are present, and that it is the possessor of the
aggregates. It cannot be present in the aggregates
or be that in which they are present, he argues, for
the same reason it cannot really be different from
them. The "present in" relation, which is conceived
here to be the relation which obtains between one or
more things and a receptacle containing it or them,
requires the independent existence of its relata.
but it has already been shown that the self does not
exist apart from the aggregates. The person cannot
possess his mind-body aggregates, he continues,
since the possessor is conceived to be either really
different from his possessions,

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like a man and his cattle, or really the same, like
a person and his body, but since it has already been
proved that the self and the aggregates are neither
really different from nor really the same as one
another, the self cannot really possess his
aggregates.

Candrakiirti has now shown that the self
perceived by the obscured conventional mind is
neither different from nor the same as the
aggregates and is not related to the aggregates in
any of the ways commonly conceived. He leaves it to
the intelligent reader to realize that since what
independently exists must be different from or the
same as the aggregates, and the self has been shown
to be neither different from nor the same as the
aggregates, it cannot exist by itself.

The self, nevertheless, innately appears to the
obscured conventional mind as separately existent,
that is, as existing by itself or by its own nature,
but not necessarily as something really different
from the aggregates, since there is no innate
conception of a self which exists apart from the
aggregates. Since the belief that the self as an
entity which exists apart from the aggregates is
based on the acceptance of a doctrine, the
refutation of a self which exists apart from the
aggregates, according to Candrakiirti, is not
sufficient to produce the inferenlial cognition
needed to help destroy our innate belief in the
separate existence of the self. To destroy our
belief in such a self, the Self, we need to refute
not only the view that the self exists apart from
the aggregates, but also the view that the self is
the same as them.

There is one Buddhist school of thought, the
Vaatsiiputriiya, which had taught that the self is
neither different from nor the same as the
aggregates, but failed to draw the correct inference
from that realization. After summarizing in verse
144 the positions already rejected from the point of
view of scripture and stating in verse 145 that by
refuting them we can destroy the belief in Self,
Candrakiirti states the view of this school.

Verse 146

Some claim that the person is substantially
existent, but inexplicable in regard to sameness,
difference, impermanence, etc. This self, they say.
is perceived by the six consciousnesses, and they
believe that it is the object of the belief in Self.

Although these Buddhists believe, as the
Praasa^ngikas do, that the person is neither
different from nor the same as the aggregates and is
the actual object of the belief in Self, they do not
realize that this state of affairs implies that the
person does not really exist. Instead. they think
that he must substantially exist because he performs
actions, experiences their results, and so forth,
and is the object, as well as the basis. of the idea
of Self. In verse 147, Candrakiirti replies that
what substantially exists cannot be inexplicable,
since even on their own view one substantially
existent thing (for example, consciousness) must be
either different from or the same as another (for
example, form), while in verse 148 he adds that a
self which is inexplicable in this way can exist
only conventionally

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or nominally. In verse 149 he argues that since
these Buddhists also hold that a functional
entity(18) (for example, consciousness) is not
different from its own essence, but is different
from another functional entity (for example, form),
the self they espouse would not even be a functional
entity, even though they claim it performs actions,
and so forth.

Finally, after Candrakiirti reaffirms in verse
150 that the self is not substantially existent and
as such does not stand in any of the aforesaid
relationships to the mind-body aggregates, he says,
nevertheless, that

Verse 150 d

This self arises in dependence on the mind-body
aggregates

Dependent existence of this sort, Candrakiirti
believes, is the final meaning of the Buddha's
famous doctrine of dependent arising,(19) for what
arises in dependence on something else does not
exist by its own nature, but only in relation to
other things. Since conventional realities only
dependently exist, they do not independently exist;
their ultimate reality is their lack of separate
existence, but they have this reality just because
they exist dependently. Those who claim, therefore,
that the Maadhyamika denial of the Self undercuts
itself have failed to penetrate the subtlety with
which Candrakiirti has provided a mode of existence
for the self without attributing real or independent
existence to it.

NOTES

1. In Sanskrit, it is commonly known as the
Madhyamakaavataara. Neither this work nor its
autocommentary, the Madhyamakaavataarabhaa.sya, has
survived as a whole in the Sanskrit original, hut
there exist Tibetan translations of each (dbU ma la
`jug pa: P5262 and 5261, vol. 98 [Toh. 3861], and
dbU ma la `jug pa'i bshad pa: P5263, vol. 98 [Toh.
3862]). The sixth chapter of the commentary, parts
of which I shall discuss, has been translated into
French by Louis de la Vallee Poussin in Le Museon
(1907) . pp. 249-317 and (1910) . pp. 271-358.
However, I have relied primarily on the Tibetan
texts and on an unpublished English translation made
by Artemus Engle in 1980. The translations presented
here are my own. Because scholars generally are more
familiar with technical Buddhist Sanskrit
terminology, than with their Tibetan translations,
in what follows I shall list only the Sanskrit
equivalents for my English translations of crucial
terms.

2. Candrakiirti often uses the terms "aatman"
("self") and "pudgala" ("person") interchangeably,
but he also uses "aatman" to refer to the self to be
denied.

3. Paramaarthasatya.

4. Dharma.

5. Paramaarthasiddhi, satyasiddhi or
tattvasiddhi, svabhaavasiddhi.

6. Madhyama.

7. Sa.mv.rtisiddhi, praj~naptisiddhi.

8. Prasa.nga.

9. Svalak.sa.nasiddha.

10. Svatantra.

11. `Suunyataa, ni.hsvabhaavataa.

12. Skandhas.

13. Sa.mv.rtisatya.

P.272

14. `Samatha, the perfected state of samaadhi or
concentration.

15. Satkaayad.r.s.ti. Literally this means "the
false view which arises in dependence on the
perishable collection of mind-body aggregates," but
for our purposes it will be clearer to translate
this expression as "the belief in Self." The same
translation shall be given to aha.mkaara.

16. Pudgalanairaatmya.

17. Dravyasat.

18. Bhava.

19. Pratiityasamutpaada.