A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t4.365

v2.c19.s6.t4.365

Chapter IX is less attractive, and is purely erudite in its content: here the philosophical doctrine of the unreality of the world of phenomena (Śūnyatā) is developed according to the Mādhyamika system, incompatible though the negativism of this system appears to us with the devotion and self-sacrifice for other beings, as taught in the first chapters of the work, yet Śāntideva, too, utilises the doctrine, already familiar to us, of the differentiation between the two truths as a means of bridging the contradiction. Everything in the world is indeed vain and transitory, but only the delusion concerning the ego (ātmamoha) is harmful, whilst the delusion concerning the duties (Kāryamoha) is beneficent.³ Nevertheless, it is strange enough that, after all the doctrines of active pity, the only conclusion at which the poet can arrive, is (IX, 152 f.):