Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c22.s1.1

c22.s1.1

THE realistic implications of both the Vijñānavāda and the Madhyamaka must doubtless not be exaggerated; these schools have both specific doctrines which they fully accepted, and it is only as tendencies that we can see a movement to substitute for the negativism of the void or of empty thought, which is hardly more than the void, an absolute comparable to the absolute of the Vedānta. The further development of this tendency is seen in the *Mahāyānaçraddhotpāda* which tradition, as we have seen, ascribes to Açvaghoṣa, but which cannot be attributed to him with any confidence. It centres in the doctrine of suchness (*tathatā*), as the expression for the reality which must be held to remain when we discount al illusory appearances and leave the realm of relativity and contingency for that of absolute truth.¹