Understanding MAdhyamaka - 2

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Nanda chandran wrote:

>The seed gives rise to the sprout. But without sunshine and water and

>other favorable climatic conditions it could not have sprouted. But

>external conditions itself will not do, else even a stone will also

>sprout with the aid of sunshine and water. So is it that it was both

>self-caused and also aided by external conditions? For the conditions

>to act upon it, the seed needs to exist. But without the conditions,

>how did it come into being in the first place? ie the seed itself

>couldn't have come into being without the external conditions. So which

>came first? So even self-caused plus aided by external conditions is

>ultimately not intelligible. To say it was neither self-caused nor was

>it aided by external factors would mean that sprouts could come out of

>anywhere! So causation is an ultimately meaningless concept and hence

>empty or shUnya.

 

Nanda -

 

Very happy to read the posts on MAdhyamika and Nagarjuna's discussion

related to Dailectics. What Nagarjuna called as ultimate cause-effect

relations as 'un intelligible', Bhagavan Shankara called as

'anirvachaniiyam' or inexplainable. With the explanations as un

intelligible, Nagarujna concluded the ultimate cause - Emptiness or

Suunyata, while Shankara consistent with Vedic injuctions - sadeva soumya

idam agra asiits ... tad aikshata, bahusyaam .. - resorted to maaya and

parameswara shakti as souce for unexplainability. Vedas outright rejucted

the theory as 'nothingness' as the begining eventhough it is

uncomprehensible from the intellect point. - Uddaalaka dismises the

arguments after stating that 'the existence was there in the begining and

it was one without a second'. He says "some say, there was non-existence

before which gave rise to existence - How can that be possible? How can

existence can comeout from non-existence? Therefore indeed existence alone

was there in the beginning, one without a second" - From Chandogya U.

Question was Uddalaka dismissing arguments of Nagarjuana even before

Nagarjuna presented his! or dismissed in anticipation of the orguments like

that of Nagarjuna - There must have been sages with views similar to

Nagarjuna way before considering Ch. U. is pre-historic.

 

I am not sure Sunyata as Nagarjuna implied is 'Nothingness' or

'no-thingness', or 'existence of pure 'Sat-Chit-ananda' as Vedic

injunctions imply.

 

NAgarjuna as the story goes was originally a Brahmin but got under the

influence of masters of Budhhism. May be Vidya can shed some light on

these.

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda

 

K. Sadananda

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