Abstract
This essay examines the concept of śūnyatū as it is formulated in the Hrdaya sūtras of the Buddhist prajñā-pāramitā literature and in the Mūlamadhamaka-kārikās of Nāgārjuna.1 An attempt will be made to point out some of the difficulties involved in seeking an objective referent for the term and in preserving the tension implicit in the affirmation of the middle way. I hope to show that the via negativa approach has positive implications for understanding śūnyatā and that in the final analysis we may have to look for its meaning in the way it is used in the Buddhist way of life.
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Notes and References
E.B. Cowell (ed.) Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts (New York: Dover Publications, 1969)
F.J. Streng, Emptiness: a Study in Religious Meaning (New York: Abingdon Press, 1967) Appendix A; Edward Conze, Buddhist Wisdom Books (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970).
Masao Abe, Zen and Western Thought, edited by Wiliam R. La Fleur (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985; London: Macmillan, 1985) p. 93.
M. Hiryanna, Outlines of Indian Philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973) pp. 220, 222.
D.T. Susuki, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (New York: Schoken, 1970).
T.V.R. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1968).
Cf. Ninian Smart, Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1969) pp. 54, 223.
L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963) pp. 133, 255.
Cf. Ninian Smart, op. cit., p. 55; Masao e, op. cit., p. 512; Edward Conze, op. cit., p. 78; Murti, op. cit., p. 226.
Hsueh-Li Cheng, ‘Nagarjuna’s approach to the problem of the existence of God’, Religious Studies, xii, 2 June, 1976, p. 215.
KV. Ramanan, Nāgārjuna’s Philosophy (Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1971) p. 16.
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© 1995 Glyn Richards
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Richards, G. (1995). Śūnyatā: Objective Referent or Via Negativa?. In: Studies in Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24147-7_12
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