ABSTRACT
Ngrjuna is the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy, and after the Buddha himself, easily the most influential philosopher in the Mahyna Buddhist tradition. Indeed, he says in Mlamadhyamakakrik and in Vigrahavyvartan that he defends no thesis. The author will argue that this is far from the case, and that the negative catukoti when properly understood in fact undermines, rather than provides evidence for, a nihilistic reading of Madhyamaka. Indeed, even Buddhist philosophers who subscribed either to the realistic and reductionist rvakayana schools regarded Madhyamaka as nihilistic, as did the idealist Yogcra. Emptiness, Tsongkhapa emphasizes, requires a parameter. But there is a second, slightly deeper, way to take this tetralemma and the positive shadow to which Candrakrti and Tsongkhapa direct our attention. The negative tetralemma is in fact a profound logical and rhetorical device for exploring the positive ontological significance of the Madhyamaka doctrine that all phenomena are empty of intrinsic nature.
