Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c7.s4.t4: Nāgārjuna’s Arguments to Meet the Above Charges
Aspects of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Relation to Hīnayāna c7.s4.t4
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Nāgārjuna’s Arguments to Meet the Above Charges
c7.s4.t4.1
Nāgārjuna pities his opponents for their inability to grasp the true sense of śūnyatā, or the object of establishing śūnyatā, and for their false imagination. The object of teaching śūnyatā, he says, is to bring about a complete cessation of all prapañca (i.e., looking upon unity as manifold). The view held by his opponents that mokṣa (emancipation) is attained by the destruction of action (karma) and passion (kleśa) is incorrect. It is a known fact that ordinarily persons are ignorant of the real state of things. They conceive rūpa (form), etc. and allow passion, hatred and delusion to come into existence. From this statement as also from the Sūtras, it is evident that saṅkalpa (imagination) is the source of all these, from which it follows that karma and kleśa are only products of imagination and have no real existence. Their origin is due to the prapañca (thought-creation) which takes hold of the mind of a worldly being, who from the time immemorial is used to a variety of actions and things such as gain and loss, happiness and misery, action and the actor, known and the knower, and so forth. All these worldly thought-creations cease to exist when a person realises the non-existence of the things which are commonly supposed to have real existence. Just as a person does not form any idea (prapañca) about the ‘beauty of a barren woman’s daughter’ and consequently does not weave a net of fancies (kalpanā) around her, so also a Mahāyānist is not troubled with the conception of “I” and “Mine”, the roots of a belief in self (satkāyadṛṣṭi), nor is he troubled by any cause for the origin of passions. If a person realises that passions (kleśas) do not originate, he cannot have any idea of good or bad action and consequently birth, old age, disease and death. Therefore the Yogins (ascetics) established in śūnyatā do not conceive any real skandha, dhātu, āyatana, etc. and consequently they have no prapañca, vikalpa, satkāyadṛṣṭi, kleśa, karma or mṛtyu. Thus the realisation of śūnyatā brings about the complete cessation of all prapañcas, and so it is said that the realisation of śūnyatā is the same as the realisation of Nirvāṇa.¹
c7.s4.t4.2
¹ M. Vr., pp. 350-1.