[Advaita-l] Advaita and Madhyamika Buddhism

[H S Chandramouli]

Namaste Sri Venkatraghavan Ji,



Reg  << Shunyata does not mean nonexistence or a void. Shunyata, as I
understand
it, simply signifies that things have no self-being or “essence” of their
own. >>,



I understand this is the new doctrine proposed as a modification of the
shUnyata concept proposed by Nagarjuna earlier which meant nihilism only. I
also understand that with this modification it is difficult to explain any
significant difference between it and advaita. Advaita concept being
earlier to shUnyata concept, the shUnyata concept loses its separate and
distinct identity itself.



Ofcourse I only know of  this as a statement and really do not have an
opinion one way or the other on the issue. Thought I would just bring it to
your attention for whatever it is worth.



Regards

On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 3:05 PM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste,
> In reading advaita works critical of Buddhism, it appears to me that the
> concept of shUnyata or emptiness as postulated by Nagarjuna has not been
> represented correctly in advaita.
>
> Shunyata does not mean nonexistence or a void. Shunyata, as I understand
> it, simply signifies that things have no self-being or “essence” of their
> own. However in most advaita works it has only been briefly discussed and
> dismissed as nihilism. Nagarjuna himself is critical of nihilism, so it
> does not appear that he had nihilism in mind when postulating shUnyata.
>
> Does anyone know why it has been represented as nihilism and cursorily
> dismissed?
>
> Regards,
> Venkatraghavan
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