ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the few commentarial texts and brings out the principle of coherence that makes the list a rational outline of a philosophical system. It focuses on Lamotte's French rendition of the Dàzhìdù Lùn, which covers the eighteen points about emptiness. Kumārajīva's commentary is mainly concerned with the complex relations between the Hīnayāna criticism of naïve realism and the Mahāyāna deconstruction of both naïve realism and Hīnayāna analytic discourse. The Sarvāstivādins and Sautrāntikas are arguing among themselves as to whether the factors are existent at all periods of time or not. Vasubandhu's list in Paramārtha's Chinese translation roughly follows the same sequence as the list in the Prajñāpāramitā scripture that Kumārajīva translated, except at three points. In the commentary on Maitreyanātha's verse text, Vasubandhu enumerates sixteen concepts of emptiness and says, in a sweeping manner, that the first fourteen concepts concern the xiàng of the dharma and the last two are about the tǐ of the dharma.
