[Editor’s Note:] Professor Hsueh-li Cheng is teaching in the Department of Philosophy at University of Hawaii at Hilo, HI. Majoring in philosophy, he graduated in the early 60s from the National Taiwan University, where his interest in Buddhism was inspired particularly by Thomé Fang. Later he graduated with Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin at Madison, WN. His works include Nāgārjuna’s Twelve Gates Treatise (Boston, 1982), etc.

Chinese culture has been based upon the philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, yet few contemporary scholars are like Professor Thomé H. Fang who had well investigated the Buddhist foundation of Chinese thought. In expounding the spirit of Chinese philosophy, Professor Fang devoted himself to the exposition of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism as well as traditional Confucianism, Taoism and Neo-Confucian-ism.[1] The purpose of this paper is to examine his explication of the San-lun Buddhist philosophy of emptiness.

"Emptiness" is a key concept in Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Indian approach to this concept was best presented by Nāgārjuna in the second century A.D. Due to his teachings on emptiness, Mahāyāna Buddhism was firmly established and he has been revered as the father of Mah~ y~ na. The first Indian Mahāyāna school founded by Nāgārjuna was called Mādhyamika (the middle way). In Nāgārjuna’s thought, emptiness is the middle way and vice versa. Nāgārjuna’s philosophy was well developed by his eminent disciple,  ryadeva.

The Mādhyamika school was introduced to China in the early fifth century. Kumūrajīva (343-413) was its initial principal teacher. After coming to China about 401 A.D. he translated a great number of M~ d-hyamika and other Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Mādhyamika Buddhism is called the San-lun Tsung (Three Treatise School) in China because it is based upon three main texts: (1) Nāgārjuna’s Middle Treatise with commentary by Pingala in 445 verses, (2) his Twelve Gates Treatise translated from the now lost Dvāda’sa-dvāra-ś-astra, including verses and commentary by Nāgārjuna, and (3) the Hundred Treatise with main verses by } ryadeva and commentary by Vasu. The San-lun Philosophy of emptiness and the middle way was something new to the Chinese. Kumūrajīva and his Chinese disciples, such as Hui-yuan (334-416), Seng-jui (352-446) and Seng-chao (374-414), used Taoist and Confucian terms to expound Mādhyamika literature so that Mādhyamika thought could be understood by the Chinese, and consequently Nāgārjuna teachings on emptiness and the middle way flourished among Chinese intellectuals during the six dynasties.

The spread of San-lun Buddhism in China after Kum~ raj§ va was much due to the efforts of Seng-lang (494-512), Seng-chuan (d. 528), Fa-lang (507-581) and particularly Chi-tsang (549-623). In the sixth century the San-lun School was introduced to Korea and was known as Sam-non-jong (again, the Three Treatise School). in Japan, from Prince Shotoku’s time (574-622) to the Nara period (708-781), San-fun Buddhism was one of the major Buddhist schools and was called the Sanron Shu.

In the history of San-lun Buddhism in China, Korea and Japan the most eminent San-lun master was perhaps Chi-tsang. He wrote good Commentaries on the Middle Treatise, the Twelve Gates Treatise and the Hundred Treatise. His writings, including The Profound Meaning of Three Treatises and The Meaning of Twofold Truth, are brilliant works on theSan-lun doctrine of k’ung (emptiness), chung-tao (the middle way), erh-ti (the twofold truth) and p’o-hsieh-hsien-chen (the refutation of erroneous views as the illumination of right views).

Although San-lun philosophy was well established by Chi-tsang, this Buddhist school of thought as a sectarian sect began to decline in China after his death. However, it had paved the way for the formation and development of other Chinese Buddhist schools. Nāgārjuna’s philosophy had converted many intellectuals to Buddhism and inspired them to create new Buddhist schools in China. His teachings were apprehended differently by different Buddhists. The word empty, or emptiness has been explicated metaphysically, non-metaphysically, and even anti-meta-physically. Nāgārjuna became the patriarch of the T’ien-t’ai and Hua-yen schools. He was also the patriarch of Pure Land, Ch’an (Zen), and many other new Mahāyāna schools in China, Korea, and Japan. Almost all Chinese Buddhists attributed their new ideas to the founder of the San-lun Mādhyamika school.

Professor Fang’s approach to the San-lun philosophy of emptiness is primarily a metaphysical one. In the prologue to his Chinese Philosophy: Its Spirit and Its Development, he wrote, "There are many approaches to Chinese philosophy. But in order to get its vital and authentic spirit, I choose a metaphysical approach in this volume. By this delimitation, I will leave many problems behind; or I shall try to see them in side-lights." According to him, "Chinese philosophical tendencies in the main are metaphysical." The key Chinese Mahāyāna doctrines should be explained and apprehended metaphysically. Chinese Mahāyānists are pilgrims searching for ultimate reality. For Professor Fang, “the highest Buddhist truth should culminate in the Ekayāna which urges all the enlightened to partake of the Buddha-nature."

In what follows, we will be given first study how Professor Fang expounded the San-fun treatment of the metaphysical problems of being, non-being and ultimate reality. According to Professor Fang, Buddhist epistemology must presuppose ontology. Then this paper will investigate his exposition of San-lun theories of knowledge, wisdom and truth: he presented the San-lun d of the twofold truth as representing the mundane view and transcendental world view. He gave an interesting and illuminating discussion of the San-lun philosophy of language and logic, and this facet will also be shown. Finally, the San-lun doctrines of emptiness as the middle way and ostensibility (chia-ming) will be explicated. However, critical comment on Professor Fang’s overall interpretation of San-lun thought is beyond this paper.

Western scholars had not studied Mādhyamika Buddhism seriously until this century. When they examined the essential Mahāyāna teachings, many identified the doctrine of emptiness with nihilism or negativism. The word "empty," according to them, meant non-being, nonexistence or nothing at all. For instance, Arthur Berridale Keith claimed in 1920s that Nāgārjuna’s philosophy of emptiness taught that the universe is “absolute nothing”; he believed that Mādhyamika epistemology was negativism or a doctrine of vacuity. Yet earlier H. Kern had stated that Mādhyamika philosophy was complete and pure nihilism. Recently Harsh Narain argued for this nihilistic apprehension by saying that Nagrojuna’s thought is "absolute nihilism rather than a form of absolutism or Absolutistic monism."

Professor Fang correctly contended that the Mādhyamika philosophy of emptiness is not nihilism or negativism. As he rightly pointed out, nihilism or pure negativism is often regarded as one of sixteen types of heterodox theory in Buddhism. According to him, emptiness is a supreme ontology. This ontology may negate the mundane world view or even empirical phenomena as we understand them, but the negation really embodies an affirmation of the ultimate world, non-empirical noumenon.

In Professor Fang’s view, the words "empty" and "emptiness" are essentially metaphysical symbols. They stand for something real and transcendental. Great Mahāyāna Buddhists are all great metaphysiciaits who will employ any available means to search for what is behind appearance, and use any possible way to convey what is beyond description. The Buddhist doctrine of emptiness represents the metaphysical struggle of Buddhists in their spiritual life, and to know its essence one should understand its metaphysical significance.

When the Chinese first encountered this Indian philosophy of emptiness, they had a hard time understanding. This was due not only to the difference between languages, but also to the dissimilarity between Indian and Chinese ways of thought. Fortunately, Taoism, according to Professor Fang, helped to solve the problem. "K’ung" (the Chinese term for emptiness) is not non-existence at all; rather it is like the Taoist "wu" which denotes transcendental reality. Literally, wu means non-being, nothing or nothingness, but in Tao-te-ching non-being is not unreal or nonexistent. Instead it is the source of all things in the universe: "All things in the world come from being. And being comes from non-being." Non-being as ontological essence is said to penetrate all things. and it is on this non-being that phenomena depend. Lao Tzu said, "Tao is empty. It may be used but its capacity is never exhausted. It is bottomless, perhaps the ancestor of all things."

Generally speaking, most Western scholars in the second half of this century have realized that the Mādhyamika philosophy of emptiness is not pure nihilism. ??nyatā has a positive meaning and significance. Logically, the Mahāyāna negation is actually an affirmation; it is likened to the neti, neti (not this, not that) expression in the Upanishads. Like Western metaphysical statements, Upanishadic negations assume the existence of an inexpressible essential substratum and aim to describe, via negation, an absolute which exists behind empirical phenomena and cannot be expressed. Śūnyatā is seen as an ontology via negativa. The well-known contemporary Buddhologist T. R. V. Murti wrote, "I have interpreted Śūnyatā and the doctrine of Two Truths as a kind of Absolutism, not nihilism."

According to Professor Fang, the San-lun Buddhism embodies a metaphysical view, and the San-lun metaphysics should not be confused with what he called the praeternatural metaphysics of Western thought. The latter is based upon a method of bifurcation and, he wrote, takes the following dualistic view of the universe:

Under the influence of Chuangtzu as well as Laotzu, Professor Fang wrote, San-lun metaphysics "rejected neat bifurcation as a method and disowned hard dualism as a truth." Kum~ raj§ va, in his correspondence with Hui-yuan and in his commentary on the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra held that the Dharmakāya was neither nothing nor being, but transcended all one-sided limitations: "The ultimate Reality is that which has emptied out all fantastic whims so as to show its own purity of essence in the form of thusness."

Professor Fang believed that Seng-chao argued with the same metaphysical spirit for the correlation of motion and rest, the non-vacuity of vacuity, and the philosophy of prajÔ ā as knowledge of no-knowledge in his three famous discourses on the Perennial, on the Non-vacuous, and on the prajÔ ā as no-knowledge." From the ordinary standpoint, motion and rest, change and permanence, and being and nothing are ontologically different. But Seng-chao had pointed out that all modes of being arise by an assemblage of various conditions. If the conditions were to disappear, the being in question would not occur. Thus whatever comes to exist by reason of causal conditions cannot be said to possess real being. Yet, owing to the fact that various causal conditions do operate, being cannot be said to be non-existent, either. Therefore, in the words of Professor Fang, "Being and Nothing are eventually transmuted into a state of undifferentiated vacuity which is the Śūnyatā in the form of the ontic Substance inseparable from all its operating funcfions.” "Knowledge," he stated, "and the objective of knowledge are correlative in the mode of Being as well as in the form of Nothing."

According to Professor Fang, Chi-tsang’s philosophy is based primarily on the MahāprajÔ ā-parāmitā-sūtra and the MahāprajÔ ā-parā-mitā-śāstra(Ta-chih-t’u-lun). And the fundamental tenet of all Mahāyana wisdom literature is that the "supreme inwardly enlightened spirit, surveying the mundane world ... is able to come upon anything without attachment and to enjoy its own perfect freedom in the contemplation of the ultimate Reality utterly devoid of all defective limitations. At this ‘omega-point’ of supreme wisdom, the range of the world actual as well as ideal, is viewed in its entirety as the Dharmadhātu exhibited in its featureless ultimacy..."

Chi-tsang had a critical analysis of the nature and function of language and logical and linguistic devices such as negation, affirmation, refutation and illumination. In Professor Fang’s view, all the epistemological issues in Chi-tsang’s famous teachings on the two-fold truth and the refutation of erroneous views as the illumination of right views should be metaphysically apprehended, as all Mahāyana epistemology presupposes its ontology and cosmology. All San-lun cognitive activities are understood as really a metaphysical adventure after ultimate reality (shih-hsiang). Epistemology, metaphysics and the quest for liberation in San-lun Buddhism, Professor Fang contended, are interrelated and are performed in life for the sake of nirvana. This unity of philosophy/religion, together with the inspiration of poetry/art, represents the spirit of Chinese Mahāyana thought.

This spirit is the advanced development of the philosophy in the PrajÔ ā-parāmitā-sūtra. For Professor Fang, the PrajÔ ā-parāmitā-sūtra generally make use of linguistic devices to delineate what is really ineffable and inexplicable. According to the philosophy of emptiness, the picture theory of logical languages which prevails among certain contemporary thinkers would be nothing but a piece of unjustifiable dogmatism. And both scientific material and speculative idealism are untenable, belonging to the sphere of the mundane. That is, the philosophy of prajÔ ā usually begins with a distinction between the mundane view of the world and a transcendental view and continues onward as Professor Fang has described.

The MahāprajÔ ā-parāmitā-sūtra depicts the samyak-sambodhi and shows the enlightened one coining up to complete the perfect knowledge. At the summits of wisdom the completely awakened one experiences the supreme light of wisdom, and its radiance is cast over all things as a whole. And all are seen to be equally empty. In Professor Fang’s words,

The MahāprajÔ ā-parāmitā-sūtra teaches that the Dharmatā as the matrix of all, when conceived under the form of eternal Śūnyatā, is undefiled with arbitrary linguistic devices and untarnished by mental conceptions. This is the real Dharmatā or the dharma properly so called. “All that is designated as the Dhamatā is after all ineffable,” he wrote. "And what is ineffable is inexplicable: any account for the inexplicable is false. The falsified dharma is devoid of authenticity."

In Chi-tsang’s view, knowledge is a right apprehension or understanding of something, and for any true apprehension there must be an object apprehended. PrajÔ ā-parāmitā as wisdom is a genuine insight into ultimate reality. It is wisdom because it illuminates the realm of the ultimate, proceeds from the ultimate, and denotes the quintessence of the real.

Chi-tsang’s two-fold truth describes the mundane world view (samvrti-satya, relative or conventional truth) and the transcendental world view (paramārtha-satya, ultimate or absolute truth). Chi-tsang wrote, “All the dharmas are empty (śūnya) in nature but men in the mundane world have perversely taken them for actual beings—this is called the samvrti-satya; the sages really know that the Śūnyatā which has been so perverted is ultimately real—this is called the paramārtha-satya." According to Professor Fang, Chi-tsang has not taught the anti-thesis of the two truths, but rather assumes their unity, an understanding he shares with Chi-i of the T’ien-T’ai school. The doctrine of the twofold truth was really the Buddha’s pedagogic device. The Buddha, Professor Fang explained in a very technical passage, "speaks about Being qua Being in adaptation to the mundane view but His implied meaning is that, as Being cannot be posited as Being, Being is an emblem for Not-Being while He speaks about Not-Being in congruence with the transcendental view but His implied meaning is that, as Not-Being cannot be posited in Not-Being, Not-Being is taken for non-Not-Being." More simply, according to Professor Fang, "All of this amounts to saying that the duality ... is absorbed into the non-duality and the non-duality embraces the duality by transfiguring it."

The two truths belong to the wisdom of expedience in adapting to a mass of people. Superficially they refer to two different things. But metaphysically they are mutually relevant and mutually implied. In Professor Fang’s analysis, this is due to the ontological fact that Śūnyatā and materiality are mutually identifiable. Apart from Śūnyatā there is nothing material, and apart from the material, there is no Śūnyatā. Thus the twofold truth is "evidently an advocation for the Eka-satya (one unitive truth), not two."

In expounding the doctrines of emptiness and the twofold truth, San-lun Buddhists gave an illuminating discussion of the nature and function of language, conceptualization and logic. Professor Fang provided an interesting exposition of these.

According to Professor Fang, Chi-tsang’s philosophy of language is derived from the inspirational teaching of the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra. The text shows the way of spiritual purity wherein one is able to transcend to reach complete freedom in the inscrutable realm of the Dharma. The way is explained verbally and conceptually in the scriptures, and can be pursued by sentient beings who know only discursive ideas and conceptual expression. Professor Fang explains that Chi-tsang “has asserted, somewhat dialectically, that the perfect Dharmakāya is imageless and yet agile in dealing with the fantastic world of configured objects, and that the ultimate destiny is inexplicable and yet all-com-prehensive in expatiating upon the spiritual import of integral truth." Thus what is imageless can set all things in wondrous shapes and what is speechless can be eloquent talk. Language, conceptual schemes and logical expression, which are actually empty, can serve to assist one in attaining nirvāna, which is really inexplicable.

There are in the vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra three steps or stages in the way of ascending toward transcendental wisdom and ultimate deliverance. The first step makes use of linguistic and conceptual devices to convey the Dharma to sentient beings so as to attract them to the sacred teachings, although they may not understand the "empty nature" of verbal messages. The second step still uses conceptual tools to expound the Dharma but employs them with the full understanding that the perfect Dharmakāya is inexplicable. For instance, MaÔ juśrī fully knows that transcendental wisdom is beyond speech, yet uses speech to state how and why ultimate reality is ineffable. Finally, Vimalakīrti makes no attempt to talk but silently muses on what is absolute and unutterable. This third step dispenses with all conceptual and linguistic devices. This vindicates the Dharma as transcending language, conceptualization and logic. Therefore Chi-tsang stated that "the Buddha often told his disciples to keep two important things in mind: (1) the sacred teaching of Dharma; (2) the sacred silence on everything. The exposition of the Dharma concerning the ultimate Reality is called the sacred teaching of Dharma; observation of the Reason inherent in the ultimate Reality is called the sacred silence on everything."

For Chi-tsang, the truth and validity of our language, conceptual schemes and logical reasoning are not a priori. They do not have absolute value but merely practical values. For the sake of sentient beings, linguistic tools and logical devices are invented and employed. For one with supreme wisdom of the transcendental Dharma their need and worth disappear. Only in the initial and second stages of our spiritual journey are conceptual devices required. Their necessity is much due to human ignorance, so one should not be attached to them or bound by diem. instead, one should know their limitations and emptiness in order to go beyond apparent validity to apprehend ultimate reality. Only in this way can a person be liberated from bondage to worldly things and gain complete freedom.

In view of this, San-lun Buddhists exercised their famous dialectic to repudiate non-Buddhist and Buddhist erroneous philosophies. One important logical apparatus for linguistic expression in the Indian philosophical systems is the tetralemma (ssu-chu, catuskoti). It consists of four main possible alternative views about the true state of things: affirmation, negation, either affirmation or negation, and neither affirmation nor negation. Nāgārjuna and his followers critically examined each lemma and exposed its absurdity so as to refute all erroneous viewpoints.

The four lemmas can be formulated as simple, compound and complex-compound types of statement. The simple type of the tetralemma is involved in the four distinctive postulations concerning (1) being, (2) non-being, (3) either being or non-being, and (4) neither being nor non-being. Chi-tsang is said to have considered these four postulations about reality to hold true for the cases of non-Buddhist Indian philosophers and also such Buddhist sects as Vātsīpurtrīyas, Vaipulya, Sar-vāstivāda and Satyasiddhi. Each of these versions is merely a partial truth and hence should be transcended.

The four statements of compound type concerning (1) the being of Being and the being of non-Being, (2) the not-being of Being and the not-being of non-Being, (3) either the being of Being and non-Being, or the not-being of Being and non-Being, and (4) neither the being of Being and non-Being, nor the not-being of Being and non-Being. Although these four views are of a higher order of rank, they should be eliminated because they are incomplete expressions of truth. The four statements of complex-compound type are still higher in the contemplative ranks. The traditional schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism often express their metaphysical views in this complex-compound vein. But they should also be transcended since, according to Professor Fang, they are still "fettered by variform categories of Being and non-Being, identity and difference, one and many, time and eternity, far off the track of the non-duafity."

Ironically, Professor Fang pointed out, even if one were able to come to the final goal, the situation would become worse, and not better. Metaphysically, nirvāna is samsāra and vice versa. Religiously, bodhisattvas (beings of wisdom) are enlightened ones and yet they still remain in the world of conceptualization; the fruits of their spiritual contemplation cannot be described and yet at the same time they are asked to teach eloquently for the sake of sentient beings. Professor Fang stated nicely, "What could be done with this predicament? Well, the dullest darkness latest at night is going to be the break of dawn. The spark of wisdom and the spirit of life cannot be killed with a perpetual dullness. Chi-tsang seems to have surmised that, after the complete transcendence from the limitations and bondage of language and its expressions, there comes the renovation of new language which is boundless in its power of eloquence."

"A new language" here may mean a new appraisal of and new uses for our linguistic and conceptual devices. One employs the old tool without being attached to it and without being bound. This is based on the fundamental apprehension that all words and concepts are ultimately empty. Our old language is put in new and proper perspective. It functions like a finger which can be used to point to the moon and yet is not identified with the moon.

In the spiritual life, we need the sacred teachings of the Dharma. However, after the process of purification, one realizes that language, while useful and valuable, is not absolute truth and reality. So the sages understand the proper validity of conceptual devices and continue to make use of them in daily life. By doing so they help others toward nirvana. Worldly or relative truth, although not unconditional, is essential for understanding transcendental or absolute truth. Nāgārjuna said in the Middle Treatise, "Without worldly truth, transcendental truth cannot be obtained." Thus although they have no a priori truth or validity, language, conceptualization and logic continue to hold an important place in Buddhism. Professor Fang wrote,

San-lun Buddhism has been known as K’ung Tsung, the emptiness school, in China, Korea and Japan because the doctrine of emptiness is its chief tenet.It is also called Chung-tao Tsung, the Middle Way School. The term “Mādhyamika” means literally the middle way. Mādhyamika Buddhism was named after the first teaching given by Guatama Buddha. For Nāgārjuna and his followers, their middle way philosophy rediscovers the Buddha’s original teaching.

After the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment he first delivered the Sermon on the Middle Way. He taught five mendicants to avoid both the ascetic and hedonistic ways of life. He reasoned,

He then told the mendicants, "I stand above these two extremes, though my heart is kept in the Middle. Suffering in me have come to an end; having been freed of errors and defilements, I have now attained peace."

This sermon is familiar to all Buddhists, Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna, but they have understood and interpreted its implication and philosophy differently. The Hīnayānists see it as teaching the life of the eightfold noble path, but the Mahāyanists maintain that it has a more significant message. For Nāgārjuna and his Mādhyamika followers, the Buddha’s teaching of the middle way dealt not just with problems of lifestyle but also with all philosophical and religious issues. It meant to eschew all extreme epistemological, metaphysical and religious views, whether Buddhist or non-Buddhist. It taught to empty the mind of all attachments and delusions wherever they occur. Professor Fang stated this well:

For Professor Fang, the San-lun philosophy of the middle way was not just a discovery of the Buddha’s original teaching or the restatement of Indian Buddhist thought, but a better and higher flowering of the Buddha’s Dharma. In Professor Fang’s words,

Chi-tsang employed the dialectic of the middle way to repudiate aspects of Hīnayāna and Mahāyana. In his analysis, Hīnayāna falls into an extreme view of being since the Hīnayānists uphold the theory of dharmas and accept the worldly view of entities as the only ascertainable truth. They are ignorant of the emptiness of all things and fail to apprehend the paramārtha-satya, and hence misunderstand the real significance and function of the samvrti-satya. On the other hand, Mahāyāna often falls into the extreme view of non-being, as when Mahāyānists dwell too much upon the ultimate emptiness of the Dharma and attach themselves to a transcendental view of nothingness. They fail to treasure the value of the samvrti-satya and consequently misapprehend the true meaning of the paramārtha-satya. But, wrote Professor Fang, “The synoptic comprehension of these two satyas consists in an insight into the ultimate Śūnyatā of the dharmas, which, though conceived under the form of non-Being, are yet reconcilable with Being, and which, even if coming into prominence through the operation of causal conditions, will count upon the ultimacy of Reality without clinging to the actual Being."

Emptiness as the middle way really aims to eliminate dualism in metaphysics and epistemology. It clears the way to develop a non-dual metaphysics, the organic and holistic perception of the universe seen in Chinese M~ hayana Buddhism. This approach has been particularly inspired by the following passage from Nāgārjuna’s Middle Treatise:

The key concepts here are emptiness (k’ung), ostensibility (chia-ming), the middle way (chung-tao) and causality (yin-yuan). Chi-tsang is said to have understood and interpreted them metaphysically. The stanza is meant to teach that emptiness, ostensibility and the middle way are ontologically identifiable with one another. And the identification is said to be vindicated by the metaphysical awareness that all things are produced by the bondage of causal conditions.

The very fact of causal production is a manifestation and assertion of emptiness. If anything were to come into being by virtue of its own essence, it would not need any causal conditions. Now since nothing exists by itself but is caused by various conditions, things are devoid of their own nature and hence are empty. The concurrent causes and conditions are also empty because in the very mode of causal operation they too are incited by something else and are not self-initiating.

The idea of causal production is also an expression of ostensibility. This is due to the fact that what is causally produced is not self-initiating and consequently can neither give rise to anything nor independently come to nothing. So-called being, nonbeing, even emptiness and causal conditions are merely ostensible things, to which we give provisionary names. They are not real entities. Thus the very conditioning of causal conditions makes our linguistic depictions nothing more titan an ostensible device.

The teaching of the emptiness and ostensibility of all things, according to Chi-tsang, does not mean that all things are nonexistent. For what is in here nonexistent cannot be causally produced. But since all things are produced by causal conditions, they cannot be inherently nothing. On the other hand, they do not absolutely exist either. If there were inherent beings or being, they would not end any causal conditions. Thus things neither exist nor do not exist inherently, are neither non-being nor being absolutely. The very fact of causal production teaches the truth of the middle way.

The San-lun philosophy led Chinese Buddhists to develop an all-in-one and one-in all metaphysics. For instance, T’ien-t’ai teachings of the identity of three truths (san-t’i-yuan-jung) and the threefold view of one mind (i-hsin-san-kuan) were influenced by San-lun thought. This can be seen In the following statements by Liang-su (750-793):

For Professor Fang, San-lun Buddhism represented one of the greatest spiritual developments of Chinese thought. Although one might not agree with all his interpretations, his careful exposition has helped us understand this philosophico-religious school, formed and advanced in China.

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For the historical development of Indian M~ dhyamika Buddhism, see T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1955), pp. 87-103.

For the histoicald development of M~ dhyamika in China, see Richard H. Bobinson, Early M~ dhyamika in India and China (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967) .

For the English translation and philosophical analysis of this text, see Hsueh-li Cheng, N~ g~ rjuna’s Twelve Gates Treatise (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1982) .

See Cheng, Empty Logic:M~ dhyamika Buddhism from Chinese sources (New York: Philosophical Library, 1984), pp. 29-33.

Harsh Narain, "Ð ã nyav~ da: A Reinterpretation," Philosophy East and West, vol. XIII, no.4 (January), 1964, p. 311.

T. R. V. Murti, "Samvrti and Param~ rtha in M~ dhyamika and Advaita Ved-~ nta," The Problem of Two Truths in Buddhism and Ved~ nta, ed. by Mervyn Sprung (Boston: D. Reidel, 1973), p. 22.

Ibid., p. 199; Mah~ prajñ~ -par~ mita-sã tra in Chinese, vol. 54 (Taipei: Cheng Shan Mei Publications, 1967), vol. 72, avarga (chapter) 54, pp. 19-32.

Fang, op. cit., p. 199; Mah~ prajñ~ -par~ mita-sã tra in Portion VI, Tipitaka Sinica, vol. I, no. 1, p. 3027.

Chi-Tsang, The Meaning of the Twofold Truth, TaishÇ 1854, pp. 77-115.

Fang, op. cit., p. 204.

Ibid., p. 207; Chi-Tsang, Inquiry into the Vimalak§ rti-nirdeÑ a-sã tra, Tripitaka, vol. I, no. 28, p. 424.