Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c21.s2.1

c21.s2.1

The Vijñānavāda does not deny the doctrine of the void (çūnyatā) of the Madhyamaka, but it is unable to accept the view that illusion can exist by itself and in itself without any support; there must be, to explain illusion, a thought which suffers from illusion. Moreover, the conception of the void essentially connotes a receptacle without any content,² and this is afforded by the conception of void thought, devoid of any characteristic, and free from the distinction of subject, object, and knowledge. Moreover, this conception of reality has, it is urged, the full approval of the Buddha who was essentially an idealist, and, if this assertion can hardly be accepted in the light of the facts, at any rate the new school can fairly claim that it is continuation in a sense of the doctrine of the thought series which the Sautrāntika developed to replace the older and more vague speculations as to the nature of the substitute for the self.