Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c20.s2.21

c20.s2.21

There is, however, an obvious difficulty in pressing to the uttermost the doctrine of the unreality of the empiric world of illusion. If we accept the strict doctrine of Nāgārjuna, as interpreted by Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti, and accepted by Çāntideva, we must admit that the phenomenal world has not merely no existence in absolute truth, but has even no phenomenal existence, difficult as this conception is, and numerous as are the failures of its holders exactly to express it. In Bhāvaviveka’s exposition of Nāgārjuna we find a more reasonable view; just as he rejected the view that silence was the only proper attitude of the Madhyamaka,¹ so he held that the world of phenomena was phenomenally valid, though from the point of view of absolute truth unreal.² The views of his rivals thus are closely parallel to the Vedānta of Caṅkara, while his own show traces of realism comparable to the more directly realistic attitude of Rāmānuja as foreshadowed in Bādarāyaṇa.