MĀDHYAMIKA Skt., representative of the school of the Middle Way (from madhyama, “the middle”); a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva, which attained great importance in India, Tibet, China, and Japan (San-lun school, Sanron school). Besides the founders, the most important representatives of the school were Buddhapālita (5th century), Bhāvaviveka (6th century), Chandrakīrti, Shāntirakshita, and Kamalashīla (8th century). The last three exercised a particularly great influence on the development of mādhyamaka in Tibet.
The name of the school refers to the Middle Way, which describes the position taken by the school in relation to the existence or nonexistence of things. With the help of eight negations (Nāgārjuna), any affirmation about the nature of things is rejected as inaccurate and thus the illusionary character and the relativity of all appearances is shown. Since all phenomena arise in dependence upon conditions (pratītya-samutpāda), they have no being of their own and are empty of a permanent self (svabhāva).
Emptiness (shūnyatā) has a twofold character in the Mādhyamika school. On the one hand it is emptiness of a self (also “egolessness”); on the other hand it means liberation, because emptiness is identical with the absolute. To realize emptiness means to attain liberation. This is accomplished by purifying the mind of affirmation and negation. For the Mādhyamikas, shūnyatā is the ultimate principle; it is often identified with dharmakāya (trikāya). Because of its teaching concerning the radical emptiness of all things, the Mādhyamika school is also called shūnyatāvāda (Teaching of Emptiness).
The absolute can, however, only be realized by working through “relative truth” in order to reach the “absolute” or “supren1e truth”. Here we encounter the notion of “the two truths” peculiar to this school. The relative, “veiled” truth (samvriti-satya) is the reality of every day life. From its relative point of view, the conventional outlook is valid and appearances are real. This view is characterized by duality. The truth in the highest sense (paramārtha-satya) is devoid of manifoldness; opposites have no meaning in it. “Realities” grasped by the intellect are not ultimately real, but they have relative value. Thus emptiness of all things does not mean devaluation of human experience. This is shown by the lifestyle of a Mādhyamika: externally he seems to accept the world with its suffering as real; he follows the moral precepts (shīla) and exerts himself to support other beings on the way of liberation. On the other hand, however, he knows that such action is fundamentally only of relative value.
Further development of this basic line of thought , which is found in the work of Nāgārjuna, came about through advances in the field of logic and under the influence of the second great current of the Indian Mahāyāna, the Yogāchāra. Perfecting of logical method obliged the Mādhyamikas to provide valid proofs of their teaching. The Yogāchāras treated in their doctrine a number of points that the Mādhyamikas had left open, for example, the question of how the phenomenal world arises.
The first Mādhyamika of importance after Nāgārjuna was Buddhapālita, who composed a commentary on Nāgārjuna’s principal work, the Mādhyamaka-kārikā. In it he subjected the positions of opponents and their “undesirable consequences” (prasanga) to a deductive reductio ad absurdum. From this method comes the name of the school founded by him, the Prasangika school.
Bhāvaviveka applied the teaching of the Yogāchāra and the logic developed by Dignāga. He made use in his style of argumentation of the “marks of right logic,” which gave the name to his school, the Svātantrika. He also confronted his opponents in his arguments and produced a critique of the method of Buddhapālita. A decisive point for the development and enrichment of the Mādhyamika philosophy was Bhāvaviveka’s adoption into his system of the Yogāchāra psychology and doctrine of liberation. He adopted these teachings with certain changes, particularly with regard to the nature of consciousness, which he regarded as part of the world of appearances.
Chandrakīrti was concerned to reinstate the original teaching of Nagarj una. He regarded himself as the successor of Buddhapālita and rejected the new elements introduced by Bhāvaviveka, especially the latter’s use of logical propositions that in his opinion violated the basic tenet of Mādhyamika not to affirmany positive position.
A further, more important, representative of this school was Shantideva (7th/8th century), who is famous for two works: the Bodhicharyāvatāra (see Matics 1970), in which he describes the path of a bodhisattva, and Shikshāmuchchaya (Collection of Teachings), in which he enumerates a series of rules that a bodhisattva should observe as he travels on the path.
The Mādhyamika philosophy has played an important role in Tibetan Buddhism since the last quarter of the 8th century. Its influence was initially due to the work of the Indian scholar Shāntirakshita and his student Kamalashīla. These two were representatives of the Yogāchāra-Mādhyamika school then active in India, which had adapted elements of the Yogāchāra to the teaching of Nāgārjuna. Kamalashīla is said to have taken part in a debate with followers of Ch’an Buddhism (Zen); after Kamalashīla’s victory in this debate, the Tibetan king declared the Indian exposition of the Mādhyamika teaching authoritative in Tibet.
In the 11 th century, with the “second spread of the Buddhist teaching” in Tibet, the Mādhyamika school of Chandrakīrti gained in importance. At about the same time a new interpretation of mādhyamaka was developed by the Shentong (Tib., lit. “Emptiness of Other”) school, which represents a synthesis with the school of Asanga. From the standpoint of this school, the other schools were subsumed under the point of view of rangtong (“emptiness of self “). Between the 11 th and 14th centuries the entirety of the Mādhyamika teaching in all its versions was assimilated in Tibet and further developed. With the definitive establishment of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism between the 14th and 16th centuries, the development of this teaching reached its pinnacle. In the following centuries it continued to be the subject of further study and commentary within the individual doctrinal traditions. At last, in the Rime movement of the 19th century further attempts were undertaken to reorganize the various interpretations of Mādhyamika.
The various philosophical theories of the Mādhyamika are given i n the Siddhānta literature. As a complement to this literature, in Tibet practical handbooks were composed which were particularly concerned with meditative practice, the goal of which was a direct and immediate realization of the Mādhyamika teachings.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
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External links: Madhyamaka