Manual of Indian Buddhism c7.s8.5

c7.s8.5

The Yogācāras and Mādhyamikas, the supporters of Mahāyānism, are idealists. The former deny the real existence of all except vijñāna, consciousness, and are therefore often designed as Vijñānavādins. The Mādhyamikas are complete nihilists⁵. Their system is the legitimate logical outcome of the principles underlying ancient Buddhism, and in so far they are entitled to the glory of being more orthodox than the Orthodox. In their nihilism, the Buddhist counterpart, or rather adaptation of the scholastic Vedānta, of the theory of Name-and-Form, in its extreme interpretation⁶, they teach that the whole of the phenomenal world is a mere illusion. Like the scholastic Vedāntins they recognize two kinds of truth, the Paramārtha and the Saṃvṛti, answering to the Pāramārthika and the Vyāvahārika of the Vedānta¹. The second kind of truth is, properly speaking, no truth at all, for it is the produce of Reason (*buddhi*), and truth lies outside the domain of Reason; Reason is Saṃvṛti. Hence, in fact, all is delusion, dream-like. There is no existence, there is no cessation of being; there is no Nirvāṇa; there is no difference between those who have attained Nirvāṇa and those who have not. All conditions, in fact, are like dreams².