ABSTRACT
Based on both Paramrtha's and Xuanzang's translations, we can safely assume that it is not intended to establish the sense-consciousness of nonexistent objects. The Yogcra and Sautrntika concepts of cognition of nonexistent objects were developed against the backdrop of the Sarvstivdin's epistemological argument for the existence of the past and the future. All these arguments rely heavily on the concepts of no-self and impermanence, two foundational Buddhist teachings. Under this atomistic realism, food and drinks are said not to exist at all apart from form and smell, because they are metaphorically designated upon the bases of these existent elements. The fifth and final argument corresponds to the third rational discourse of vaipulya and is concerned with the heretical view of nihilism. However, they do not directly correspond to the final type of nonexistencemutual nonexistence. This extreme view that expels nonbeing or nonexistence from the realms of knowledge and ontology has been influential in the history of Western and Eastern philosophy.
