source: pratityasamutpada

target: sunyata

tradition: madhyamaka

notes: Nagarjuna's master thesis, MMK Ch.24.18: 'Whatever is dependently co-arisen, that is explained to be emptiness.' Not two doctrines — one. This is the pivot of the entire MMK.


source: svabhava

target: pratityasamutpada

relation: negates

notes: If things had svabhava they could not arise dependently — they would be self-sufficient. So svabhava and dependent origination are mutually exclusive. Since dependent origination is observationally undeniable, svabhava must be empty.


source: sunyata

target: svabhava

notes: The primary Madhyamaka move. Sunyata is not a thing — it is the absence of svabhava in phenomena. This edge runs in both directions with svabhava: they mutually negate each other.


notes: Emptiness of emptiness — the self-application that prevents sunyata from becoming a new absolute. The most important single move against both nihilism and a reified 'emptiness' view. Nagarjuna: 'I have no thesis.'


source: anatta

tradition: mahayana

notes: Theravada anatta applied to persons. Mahayana extends the same logical move to all dharmas (phenomena). Anatta is the seed; sunyata of dharmas is the fruit. The Heart Sutra performs this extension explicitly on the five aggregates.


notes: Shantideva Ch.9 argues: if you accept no-self of persons using the chariot argument, consistency requires applying the same analysis to dharmas. Abhidharma accepted the first and denied the second — Mahayana closes that gap.


tradition: abhidharma

notes: Abhidharma position: persons are conventionally real but dhammas have sabhava at the ultimate level. This is precisely what the Heart Sutra refutes with 'form is emptiness.' The Prajnaparamita corpus is in large part a sustained response to this position.


relation: deconstructs

notes: The Heart Sutra applies sunyata systematically to each of the five aggregates: 'form is empty, emptiness is form' — then implies the same for vedana, samjna, samskara, vijnana. Then extends to all Abhidharma categories: no eye, no ear, no mind, no form, no sound...


relation: refutes

notes: The entire negation section of the Heart Sutra (no eye, no ear... no ignorance, no end of ignorance... no path, no attainment) is a systematic dismantling of the Abhidharma category system. Each negated category is an Abhidharma doctrine.


notes: The Diamond Sutra's distinctive rhetorical move: 'X is not X, therefore it is called X.' Applied to bodhisattva, dharma, buddha-marks, merit, beings. Each iteration performs one deconstruction of a concept the reader might reify. The 32 sections accumulate into a complete dismantling.


source: prasanga

notes: The prasanga method: assume the opponent's position (svabhava exists) and derive an absurdity. Never assert 'things are empty' as a counter-thesis — that would itself be a svabhava claim. Nagarjuna: if emptiness were my thesis, you could criticize me; but I have no thesis.


target: prasanga

notes: The Vigrahavyavartani is the explicit defense of the prasanga method itself. Opponent: your words refuting svabhava must themselves have svabhava to have referential validity. Nagarjuna: words function conventionally without svabhava — like a doctor's words healing without the words having medicinal svabhava.


notes: Shantideva refutes the Abhidharmika position that dharmas have ultimate reality. The diamond splinter argument on causation parallels MMK Ch.1: things cannot arise from self, other, both, or neither — so no svabhava-based causation is possible.


target: cittamatra

notes: Shantideva's refutation of Cittamatra/Yogacara: consciousness itself cannot have svabhava. If the mind is self-aware (svasamvedana), it faces the same prasanga as external objects — self-awareness is incoherent if the knower and known are identical.


target: alayavijnana

tradition: prasangika

notes: Chandrakirti: the alayavijnana is an unnecessary postulation. Conventional selfhood (the person as mere dependent designation) suffices to explain karma and continuity without positing a substratum consciousness with svabhava.


tradition: theravada

notes: The chariot argument: 'Nagasena' is neither the parts nor their sum nor anything separate. He exists as a conventional designation dependent on the aggregates. This is the closest Theravada comes to Chandrakirti's 'mere imputation.'


notes: Chandrakirti's refinement: dependent origination includes dependence on conceptual designation, not just causal dependence. Things depend on the mind's imputation as well as causes and conditions. This is what separates Prasangika from Svatantrika.


tradition: yogacara

notes: Yogacara's alternative to straight negation: the parikalpita (imagined) nature is empty; the paratantra (dependent) nature is not completely empty; the parinishpanna (perfected) nature is the emptiness of the imagined in the dependent. Emptiness is scoped, not global.


source: cittamatra

notes: For Yogacara, the emptiness of external objects follows from mind-only: there are no mind-independent objects, so 'external objects' are empty of being external. This is a narrower claim than Madhyamaka's sweeping negation of svabhava.


notes: Madhyamaka critique: Yogacara avoids external-object svabhava but retains consciousness-svabhava. This is incomplete. The emptiness of external objects is a stepping stone, not the destination. Shantideva and Chandrakirti both make this explicit.


source: tathagatagarbha

tradition: mixed

notes: The central unresolved tension in Mahayana philosophy. If tathagatagarbha is a positive luminous ground, does it posit a new svabhava? Rangtong: yes, it is only conventional. Shentong: no, it is empty of adventitious defilements, not of its own nature. Longchenpa navigates this through the kadag/lhundrub distinction.


relation: presupposes

notes: Without dependent origination, the two truths collapse: there is nothing to be conventionally real if not dependently arisen. The two truths framework only works because things exist conventionally (as dependently arisen) while being ultimately empty (of svabhava).


source: nonduality

notes: The two truths are themselves nondual — not two separate levels but two aspects of one reality. Vimalakirti's silence performs this: any statement of nonduality using the conventional/ultimate distinction fails. Silence alone does not betray the nondual by making it one side of a duality.


notes: Emptiness wrongly understood becomes nihilism. The doctrine of skillful means explains why the Buddha taught provisionally — not all audiences can receive the full emptiness teaching without sliding into 'nothing exists.' The raft metaphor in Diamond Sutra makes this explicit.


source: bodhichitta

relation: enables

notes: Emptiness and bodhichitta are the two wings of the path. Sunyata dissolves the self/other boundary; bodhichitta is the compassionate response to that dissolution. Without sunyata, compassion is limited by self-grasping. Without bodhichitta, sunyata risks becoming a cold philosophical position.


notes: Eternalism requires svabhava: things can only be permanent if they have own-being independent of causes. So refuting svabhava refutes eternalism simultaneously. This is why Nagarjuna says the middle way between existence and nonexistence IS dependent origination.


notes: Misreading sunyata as 'things are nothing' is the error Nagarjuna most vigorously fights. Emptiness is not nothingness — it is the mode of dependent existence. The emptiness of emptiness (e004) is the antidote. Conventionally things still function, cause effects, and can be liberated.


notes: Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra is the locus classicus of skillful means as doctrine. The three vehicles (hearer, solitary buddha, bodhisattva) are revealed as expedient — there is ultimately only one vehicle (ekayana). The 'ten suchnesses' of all dharmas simultaneously express emptiness and dependent nature.


target: nonduality

notes: The Vimalakirti Sutra's climax — Chapter 9. Thirty-two bodhisattvas each give a verbal account of entering nonduality. Vimalakirti remains silent. Manjushri: 'This silence is itself the entry into nonduality.' The sutra enacts rather than describes.


notes: The Lankavatara is the primary scriptural source for alayavijnana. It also identifies tathagatagarbha with alayavijnana in a way later Yogacara tries to disentangle. This conflation is philosophically significant and creates the tension Chandrakirti exploits.


notes: Shantideva synthesizes Nagarjuna's analytical method with the bodhisattva ethic. MMK is the logical foundation; BCA Ch.9 is the application. Shantideva assumes familiarity with MMK — the diamond splinter argument in BCA 9 is MMK Ch.1 redeployed.


notes: Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara is a commentary-level engagement with Nagarjuna. It settles the interpretation debates (Prasangika vs Svatantrika) and extends the chariot analysis sixfold. The Tibetan tradition thereafter reads Nagarjuna through Chandrakirti.


relation: extends

notes: The Sunyatasaptati focuses specifically on emptiness rather than the general deconstruction strategy of MMK. More accessible, fewer categories. Best read as a focused development of MMK's core thesis.


notes: Vigrahavyavartani defends MMK against the meta-level objection. If MMK's argument is effective, its words must have some validity — but valid words suggest svabhava. Nagarjuna's answer: words function like a magician's illusion — effectively without svabhava.


target: bodhichitta

notes: Ratnavali bridges Nagarjuna's analytical emptiness to the bodhisattva path. Sunyata is not the end — it is what makes the bodhisattva's compassion possible without self-grasping distorting it. This is the philosophical bridge Shantideva inherits.


tradition: prajnaparamita

notes: The Ashtasahasrika introduces 'emptiness of emptiness' — the bodhisattva does not apprehend prajnaparamita itself as a dharma to be grasped. This prevents the Prajnaparamita itself from becoming a new reification. Foundational for Nagarjuna's self-applying move.


notes: Theravada two-truths (sammuti/paramattha) anticipates Mahayana two-truths structurally but differs in content: Theravada ultimate truth includes dhammas with sabhava; Mahayana ultimate truth is the emptiness of all dharmas including those dhammas.


source: dharmadhatu

notes: In Madhyamaka, dharmadhatu = sunyata viewed as the space in which phenomena appear and function without svabhava. It is the 'room' that dependent origination occurs within. Not a container with svabhava but the openness that dependent arising requires.