Korea Journal of Buddhist StudiesISSN:1598-0642(Print)불교학연구회

By negating the self-nature(=svabhāva), Nāgārjuna manifested de pendent arising(=pratītyasamutpāda) in each chapter of his Madh ya makaśāstra. As the primary characteristic of emptiness(=śūnya tā) is to negate this self-nature, if we grasp this meaning of emptiness, we can understand the meaning of dependent arising Nāgārjuna intended to transmit. this emptiness, however, is likely to be accepted as negativity only. So when we grasp together complementaries such as dependent arising and provisional name(=prajñapti), paramārthasa tya(=truth in terms of ultimate fruit) and saṃvṛtisatya(=truth relating to worldly covention), we can understand that emptinss also contains positivity Nāgārjuna treated the emptiness of positivity in ″the exam inatin of the noble truths(=arya-satya-parīkṣā),″and he conden sed the contents of this chapter in its eighteenth verse. The eigteenth verse is as follows. We declare that whatever is dependent arising, that is emptiness.That is a provisional name relying upon (dependent arising). That is the middle path.(yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaḥ śūnyatāṃ tāṃ pracakṣamahe / sā prajña ptir upādāya pratipat saiva madhyamā //)Therefore, if we analyse this verse we come to know more deeply what he means by emptiness and dependent arising. If we investigate how the Madhyamika school's philosophers succeeding Nāgārjuna interpreted the meaning of his emptiness, we can ascertain that they could not enlarge more widely the meaning of emptiness he wished to transmit. These Madyamika school's philoso phers also accepted his emptiness as a positivity, but they emphasized negativity much more. ultimately they could not develop the various aspects of emptiness.However, the yogacāra school's philosophers in India and China understood this positivity of emptiness more deeply. It is because they grasped the characteristics of language correctly and acknowledged the function of it that they understood this positivity more deeply.