The Twelve Links, and the End of All Views
Examining the Twelve Links — Examining Wrong Views觀十二因緣品第二十六 — 觀邪見品第二十七
The treatise closes by turning back, deliberately, to the teaching it began from. A questioner asks to hear the śrāvaka path rather than the Mahāyāna one, and Nāgārjuna gives it to him straight: nine verses laying out the twelve links of dependent arising, positively, with nothing taken away. Then the last chapter sweeps out the speculative views the Buddha had always refused to answer — whether I existed before, whether I will exist after, whether the world is eternal, whether it has an edge — showing that every one of them stands on a fixed self that was never there. The final verse is a bow.
The Text
Chapter 26 · Examining the Twelve Links 觀十二因緣品第二十六
After twenty-five chapters of taking things apart, this one builds. The questioner has heard the ultimate meaning stated in the Great Vehicle's way and now asks to hear it in the older way — the way the Buddha taught it to the śrāvakas. What follows is the twelve links, in order, from ignorance to aging and death, and then the same chain run backwards into cessation. There is not a single negation in it. Nothing in these nine verses would be out of place in an Abhidharma manual, and that is the point of putting them here.
問曰：汝以摩訶衍說第一義道，我今欲聞說聲聞法入第一義道。
答曰：
Question: You have set out the path of the ultimate meaning by way of the Mahāyāna. Now I would like to hear the śrāvaka teaching's own entry into the path of the ultimate meaning.
Answer:
眾生癡所覆， 為後起三行，
以起是行故， 隨行墮六趣。
以諸行因緣， 識受六道身，
以有識著故， 增長於名色。
名色增長故， 因而生六入，
情塵識和合， 而生於六觸。
Sentient beings, covered over by delusion,
set the three formations moving for a life to come;
and because they have set those formations moving,
they follow them down into the six destinies.
Through the formations as its condition,
consciousness takes up a body in the six paths;
and because consciousness clings,
name-and-form grows.
Because name-and-form grows,
the six sense-fields are born from it;
faculty, object, and consciousness meet,
and from that meeting the six contacts are born.
因於六觸故， 即生於三受，
以因三受故， 而生於渴愛。
因愛有四取， 因取故有有，
若取者不取， 則解脫無有。
從有而有生， 從生有老死，
從老死故有， 憂悲諸苦惱。
Because of the six contacts,
the three feelings arise at once;
and because of the three feelings,
craving, that thirst, is born.
From craving come the four graspings;
from grasping there is becoming;
and if the one who grasps does not grasp,
he is freed, and there is no becoming.
From becoming there is birth;
from birth, aging and death;
and out of aging and death there come
grief, sorrow, and every distress.
如是等諸事， 皆從生而有，
但以是因緣， 而集大苦陰。
是謂為生死， 諸行之根本，
無明者所造， 智者所不為。
以是事滅故， 是事則不生，
但是苦陰聚， 如是而正滅。
All such things as these
come to be from birth alone;
it is by this chain of conditions
that the great mass of suffering is gathered.
This is what is called birth and death,
the root of all the formations,
made by those who are ignorant,
and not done by the wise.
Because this ceases,
that does not arise;
and so this heap, this mass of suffering,
is in just this way rightly extinguished.
A reader who has come this far through the Middle Treatise should stop at the plainness of these nine verses, because after twenty-five chapters of demolition the plainness is doing the work. Nāgārjuna has denied that anything arises from itself, from another, from both, or from nothing. He has taken apart motion, the senses, fire and fuel, time, karma, the Tathāgata, the Four Noble Truths, and nirvāṇa itself. And now, asked for the śrāvaka path, he sets out the twelve links exactly as they had always been set out, and does not qualify a word of it.
This is not a lapse and it is not a concession. It is the treatise's own thesis showing its other face. Emptiness was never the claim that nothing happens; it was the claim that what happens does so dependently, without any self-standing thing at any point in the chain. A chain of that kind can be described in full without ever being anything more than a chain. So the twelve links can be stated positively, at length, and truthfully — and every one of them is empty, and their being empty is precisely why the chain runs at all. Chapter 24 had already said it in a line worth carrying here: 以有空義故，一切法得成 — because emptiness holds, everything is workable.
Notice too that the questioner asks for the śrāvaka path and gets it without condescension. The Mahāyāna polemics of Nāgārjuna's later readers are not in this text. What the chapter says, structurally, is that the older teaching and the emptiness teaching are the same teaching read at two depths — that dependent arising, stated plainly, is already what the twenty-five chapters were defending.
凡夫為無明所盲故，以身口意業，為後身起六趣諸行。隨所起行有上中下，識入六趣隨行受身。以識著因緣故名色集，名色集故有六入，六入因緣故有六觸，六觸因緣故有三受，三受因緣故生渴愛，渴愛因緣故有四取，四取取時以身口意業起罪福，令後三有相續。從有而有生，從生而有老死，從老死有憂悲苦惱種種眾患，但有大苦陰集。
是故知凡夫無智，起此生死諸行根本。智者所不起，以如實見故，則無明滅。無明滅故諸行亦滅，以因滅故果亦滅，如是修習觀十二因緣生滅智故是事滅，是事滅故乃至生老死憂悲大苦陰皆如實正滅，正滅者畢竟滅。是十二因緣生滅義，如阿毘曇、修多羅中廣說。
The ordinary person, blinded by ignorance, sets moving by acts of body, speech, and mind the formations of the six destinies, for the sake of a body to come. According as the formations he sets moving are superior, middling, or inferior, consciousness enters the six destinies and takes up a body in keeping with them. Because consciousness clings, name-and-form gathers; because name-and-form gathers, there are the six sense-fields; because of the six sense-fields, the six contacts; because of the six contacts, the three feelings; because of the three feelings, craving is born; because of craving, the four graspings; and in the moment of the four graspings, by acts of body, speech, and mind, one produces wrongdoing and merit, which keeps the three realms of becoming running on into the future. From becoming there is birth; from birth, aging and death; from aging and death, grief, sorrow, suffering and distress and every kind of trouble — nothing here but the gathering of a great mass of suffering.
Hence one knows that it is the ordinary person, having no wisdom, who sets moving this root of the formations of birth and death. The wise do not set it moving, for because they see things as they are, ignorance ceases. Because ignorance ceases, the formations cease too; because the cause ceases, the fruit ceases as well. Cultivating in this way the knowledge that contemplates the arising and ceasing of the twelve links, this ceases; and because this ceases, so on up to birth, aging and death, grief and sorrow and the great mass of suffering, all are truly and rightly extinguished — and "rightly extinguished" means extinguished for good. The meaning of the arising and the ceasing of these twelve links is set out at length in the Abhidharma and in the sūtras.
The hinge of the whole chapter is a single line of verse: 以是事滅故，是事則不生 — "because this ceases, that does not arise." It is the standard formula of dependent arising running in reverse, and it is the only reason the chain is worth describing at all. If the links were substantial things, the chain would be a report on how the machinery works, and nothing could be done about it. Because they are nothing but conditions, removing one condition stops what depended on it. The chain is describable precisely to the extent that it is breakable.
Piṅgala is careful about where the break happens. It is not at craving, which is where a moralist would put it, and not at birth, which is where a fatalist would. It is at ignorance — and ignorance ceases 以如實見故, "because one sees things as they are." That phrase is the join between this chapter and the twenty-five before it. What the twenty-five chapters were doing, argument by argument, was seeing things as they are: finding no inherent nature in motion, in the aggregates, in the agent, in time. The demolition was never an end in itself. It was the first link of the chain being worked on directly.
One small detail of Piṅgala's gloss repays attention. He says the formations set moving are "superior, middling, or inferior," and that consciousness takes a body in keeping with them. Nothing is being carried across from one life to the next — no traveler, no soul. What continues is a shape, a tendency, the specific bend that the acting put into the stream. Chapter 17 argued this at length about karma; here it is stated in a clause and passed over, as if it were obvious. By this point in the treatise it should be.
Chapter 27 · Examining Wrong Views 觀邪見品第二十七
The last chapter takes up the questions the Buddha had famously refused to answer — the ones a monk named Māluṅkyaputta once threatened to leave the order over. Was I in existence before this life? Will I be in existence after it? Is the world eternal, or does it stop? Does it have an edge, or does it go on forever? Nāgārjuna does not refuse them. He shows, one by one, that each question is built on a self that would have to persist in order for the question to have a subject — and that no such self can be found either inside the aggregates or outside them. Take away the self and the questions do not get answered; they stop being askable.
The Four Questions 四句
問曰：已聞大乘法破邪見，今欲聞聲聞法破邪見。
答曰：
Question: I have heard the Great Vehicle's teaching break wrong views; now I would like to hear the śrāvaka teaching break wrong views.
Answer:
我於過去世， 為有為是無？
世間常等見， 皆依過去世。
我於未來世， 為作為不作？
有邊等諸見， 皆依未來世。
Was I there in a past age,
or was I not?
The view that the world is permanent, and the rest,
all rest upon a past age.
Will I come to be in a future age,
or will I not?
The view that the world has an end, and the rest,
all rest upon a future age.
我於過去世，為有、為無、為有無、為非有非無？是名常等諸見依過去世。我於未來世，為作、為不作、為作不作、為非作非不作？是名邊無邊等諸見依未來世。如是等諸邪見，何因緣故名為邪見？是事今當說。
Was I there in a past age, or was I not, or both there and not there, or neither there nor not there? These are the views of permanence and the rest, which rest upon a past age. Will I come to be in a future age, or will I not, or both come to be and not come to be, or neither come to be nor not come to be? These are the views of having an end and having no end and the rest, which rest upon a future age. And for what reason are wrong views of this sort called wrong views? That will now be explained.
Two questions, each opening into four alternatives, and between them they generate the entire catalogue of speculative views. That is a remarkable compression, and it is worth seeing how it works. Every question about whether the world lasts forever is really a question about whether I persist; every question about whether the world has an edge is really a question about whether I stop. The cosmology was always autobiography wearing a larger coat.
Notice which word both verses put first: 我, "I." Not "the world," though the views to be refuted are stated as views about the world. Nāgārjuna's diagnosis is in the word order. The four corners get applied not to the universe but to a self stretched across time, and the whole chapter will proceed by attacking the self rather than the cosmology. Break the subject and the predicate has nothing to attach to.
English readers should also register that the past-directed and future-directed questions are asked in different verbs. The past question is 為有為是無 — was I, or was I not, a matter of being. The future question is 為作為不作 — will I be made, will I come to be, a matter of production. The asymmetry is exact. Looking backward we ask whether something already there was there; looking forward we ask whether something will be produced. The first slides toward permanence, the second toward annihilation, and the chapter takes them in that order.
Was There a Self in a Past Age?
過去世有我， 是事不可得，
過去世中我， 不作今世我。
若謂我即是， 而身有異相，
若當離於身， 何處別有我？
離身無有我， 是事為已成，
若謂身即我， 若都無有我。
That there was a self in a past age —
this cannot be established.
The self that was in a past age
does not make the self of this age.
If you say the self is the very same
while the body bears a different mark,
then, once it is set apart from the body,
where is there a separate self to be found?
That apart from the body there is no self
has already been established.
Either the body itself is the self,
or there is no self at all.
但身不為我， 身相生滅故，
云何當以受， 而作於受者？
若離身有我， 是事則不然，
無受而有我， 而實不可得。
今我不離受， 亦不即是受，
非無受非無， 此即決定義。
But the body is not the self,
for the body's mark is arising and ceasing;
how then could what is taken up
be made into the one who takes it up?
That there is a self apart from the body
will not do either;
a self with nothing taken up
simply cannot be found.
So the self is not apart from what is taken up,
nor is it the very same as what is taken up;
it is not without it, and it is not nothing —
this is the settled meaning.
我於過去世有者，是事不然。何以故？先世中我不即作今我，有常過故。若常則有無量過。何以故？如人修福因緣故作天而後作人，若先世我即是今我者，天即是人。又人以罪業因緣故作旃陀羅，後作婆羅門。若先世我即是今我者，旃陀羅即是婆羅門。譬如舍衛國婆羅門名提婆達，到王舍城亦名提婆達，不以至王舍城故為異。若先作天後作人，則天即是人，旃陀羅即是婆羅門。但是事不然。何以故？天不即是人，旃陀羅不即是婆羅門，有此等常過故。
若謂先世我不作今我，如人浣衣時名為浣者，刈時名為刈者，而浣者與刈者雖不異，而浣者不即是刈者。如是我受天身名為天，我受人身名為人，我不異而身有異者，是事不然。何以故？若即是者，不應言天作人。今浣者於刈者，為異為不異？若不異，浣者應即是刈者，如是先世天即是人，旃陀羅即是婆羅門，我亦有常過。若異者，浣者即不作刈者，如是天不作人，我亦無常，無常則無我相。是故不得言即是。
That I existed in a past age will not do. Why? Because the self of a former age does not straightaway become the self of today — that would carry the fault of permanence, and if it were permanent there would be countless faults. Why? Take a person who by cultivating merit becomes a god and afterward becomes a human: if the self of the former age were the very same as the self of today, then the god would be the human. Or take a person who by evil deeds becomes a caṇḍāla and afterward becomes a brahmin: if the self of the former age were the very same as the self of today, then the caṇḍāla would be the brahmin. It would be like a brahmin of Śrāvastī named Devadatta, who on reaching Rājagṛha is still named Devadatta and does not become a different man by arriving there. If one were first a god and afterward a human, then the god would be the human and the caṇḍāla the brahmin. But this will not do. Why? Because a god is not straightaway a human and a caṇḍāla is not straightaway a brahmin — such are the faults of permanence.
Suppose you say instead that the self of a former age does not become the self of today: as a man washing clothes is called a washer and reaping is called a reaper, and though the washer and the reaper are not different, still the washer is not the very same as the reaper. In just this way, you say, when the self takes up a god's body it is called a god, and when it takes up a human body it is called a human; the self is not different, only the body differs. This will not do. Why? If they were the very same, one ought not to say that a god becomes a human. Now, is the washer different from the reaper or not? If not different, the washer would be the very same as the reaper — and then the god of the former age would be the human, and the caṇḍāla the brahmin, and the self would again carry the fault of permanence. If different, the washer would never become the reaper — and then the god would never become the human, the self would be impermanent, and being impermanent it would have no mark of a self at all. Therefore one cannot say that they are the very same.
The dilemma here is old and it is still the sharpest instrument anyone has for this question. If the self that was is the very same self that is now, then nothing about it has changed — and since the god is not the human and the outcaste is not the brahmin, the two lives cannot both be that self's. Piṅgala's Devadatta makes the point by contrast: travel really does leave a man the same man, and that is exactly what rebirth cannot be, or nothing would have happened. But if the self that was is a different self, then whatever the earlier one did has nothing to do with the later one, and both merit and consequence go out the window with the identity.
The washer and the reaper is the opponent's best move, and it deserves respect. One man, two occupations, two names — the difference sits entirely in what he happens to be doing, not in what he is. Transfer that to lives and you seem to get what you wanted: a constant self wearing successive bodies the way a farmhand wears successive jobs. Piṅgala's reply is simply to press the same question one level down. Is the washer the same as the reaper or not? If yes, then he is washing while he reaps, and the god is a human while he is a god. If no, then the washer has genuinely ended and the reaper genuinely begun, and the constancy you were trying to save is gone. The analogy does not escape the fork; it just moves it.
Verse 8 states where the argument actually lands, and it is the most carefully guarded sentence in the chapter: the self is not apart from what is taken up, not identical with what is taken up, not without it, and not nothing. Four negations, and the fourth is aimed at the reader who has been enjoying the first three. There is no self to be found under analysis; there is also no license here to say that nobody is reading this page. What is refused is a findable owner behind the aggregates — not the person who acts, remembers, suffers, and can be freed.
Is the Self the Owner of the House?
問曰：我即是，但因受故分別是天是人，受名五陰身，以業因緣故分別是天是人、是旃陀羅是婆羅門，而我實非天非人、非旃陀羅非婆羅門。是故無如是過。
答曰：是事不然。何以故？若身作天作人，作旃陀羅作婆羅門，非是我者，則離身別有我。今罪福生死往來，皆是身非是我。罪因緣故墮三惡道，福因緣故生三善道，若苦樂瞋喜憂怖等，皆是身非我者，何用我為？如治俗人罪，不豫出家人。五陰因緣相續罪福不失故有解脫，若皆是身非我者，何用我為？
Question: The self is the very same. It is only on account of what it takes up that one distinguishes this as a god and that as a human — "what is taken up" meaning the body of five aggregates. By karma one distinguishes god from human, caṇḍāla from brahmin, while the self itself is in truth neither god nor human, neither caṇḍāla nor brahmin. So no such fault arises.
Answer: This will not do. Why? If it is the body that becomes a god or a human, a caṇḍāla or a brahmin, and not the self, then there is a self standing apart from the body — and then wrongdoing and merit, and all the going and coming of birth and death, belong to the body and not to the self. If falling into the three evil destinies through wrongdoing, and being born into the three good destinies through merit, and pain and pleasure, anger and joy, grief and fear, all belong to the body and not to the self, then what is a self for? It would be like punishing a layman for a crime: it has nothing to do with one who has left home. It is because the five aggregates continue on as a causal series, and wrongdoing and merit are not lost, that there is any liberation at all. If it all belongs to the body and not to the self, what is a self for?
問曰：罪福等依止於我，我有所知、身無所知故，知者應是我。起業因緣罪福是作法，當知應有作者。作者是我，身是我所用，亦是我所住處。譬如舍主以草木泥塈等治舍，自為身故隨所用治舍有好惡。我亦如是，隨作善惡等得好醜身，六道生死皆我所作，是故罪福之身皆屬於我。譬如舍但屬舍主不屬他人。
Question: Wrongdoing and merit and the rest rest upon the self. The self knows and the body does not, so the knower must be the self. Wrongdoing and merit, produced by karma, are made things, and one should know there must be a maker. The maker is the self; the body is what the self uses, and also where the self dwells. It is like the owner of a house who builds it out of thatch, timber, mud, and plaster: since he is building it for his own body, the house turns out well or badly according to what he uses. So too the self: as it does good or evil it gets a fine or an ugly body, and all its births and deaths through the six destinies are its own doing. Hence the body that carries wrongdoing and merit belongs entirely to the self — just as a house belongs to its owner and to no one else.
答曰：是喻不然。何以故？舍主有形，有觸有力，故能治舍。汝所說我，無形無觸故無作力，自無作力亦不能使他作。若世間有一法無形無觸能有所作者，則可信受知有作者。但是事不然。若我是作者，則不應自作苦事。若是念者，可貪樂事不應忘失。若我不作苦而苦強生者，餘一切皆亦自生，非我所作。
若見者是我，眼能見色眼應是我。若眼見而非我，則違先言見者是我。若見者是我，我則不應得聞聲等諸塵。何以故？眼是見者，不能得聞聲等塵故。是故我是見者，是事不然。若謂如刈者用鎌刈草，我亦如是以手等能有所作者，是事不然。何以故？今離鎌別有刈者，而離身心諸根無別作者。若謂作者雖非眼耳等所得亦有作者，則石女兒能有所作，如是一切諸根皆應無我。
若謂右眼見物而左眼識，當知別有見者。是事不然。今右手習作左手不能，是故無別有作者。若別有作者，右手所習左手亦應能，而實不能，是故更無作者。復次有我者言，見他食果口中涎出，是為我相。是事不然。何以故？是念力故，非是我力。又亦即是破我因緣。人在眾中愧於涎出，而涎強出不得自在，當知無我。
Answer: The simile will not do. Why? The owner of a house has a shape, has tangibility, has strength, and so is able to build a house. The self you describe has no shape and no tangibility, and therefore no power to act; and having no power to act itself, neither can it make anything else act. If there were in the world so much as one thing without shape or tangibility that could do anything at all, one could accept that there is a maker. But there is not. Besides, if the self were the maker it ought not to make suffering for itself; and if it were the one who remembers, it ought never to lose hold of the pleasant things it wants. And if the self does not make suffering and suffering forces its way into being all the same, then everything else would likewise arise on its own and not be the self's doing.
If the seer is the self, then since the eye sees form, the eye ought to be the self. And if the eye sees but is not the self, that contradicts what was just said, that the seer is the self. If the seer is the self, then the self ought not to be able to hear sounds and the other sense-objects. Why? Because the eye, which is the seer, cannot hear sounds and the rest. So that the self is the seer will not do. And if you say that as a reaper cuts grass with a sickle, so the self acts by means of the hands and so forth — that will not do either. Why? Because apart from the sickle there really is a reaper, whereas apart from body and mind and the faculties there is no separate maker. And if you say that although the maker cannot be got at by eye or ear or the rest there is a maker all the same, then the son of a barren woman could get things done too; and on that showing there would be no self in any of the faculties.
And if you say that the right eye sees a thing while the left eye recognizes it, so one should know there is a separate seer — that will not do. What the right hand has trained at, the left hand cannot do; so there is no separate maker. Were there a separate maker, whatever the right hand had trained at the left hand ought to manage as well; but in fact it cannot. Therefore there is no maker besides. Furthermore, those who hold there is a self say: when one watches another eating fruit and one's own mouth waters, this is the mark of a self. That will not do. Why? Because it is the force of memory, not the force of a self. Indeed the case is itself a reason for refuting the self: a person in company is ashamed to have his mouth water, and the water comes forcing out all the same and he has no mastery over it. One should know there is no self.
復次又有顛倒過罪。先世是父今世為子，是父子我一，但身有異。如從一舍至一舍，父故是父，不以入異舍故便有異。若有我，是二應一，如是則有大過。若謂無我五陰相續中亦有是過。是事不然。何以故？五陰雖相續，或時有用、或時無用，如蒲桃漿持戒者應飲，蒲桃酒不應飲，若變為苦酒還復應飲。五陰相續亦如是，有用有不用，若始終一我，有如是過。五陰相續無如是過，但五陰和合故假名為我，無有決定。如樑椽和合有舍，離樑椽無別舍。如是五陰和合故有我，若離五陰實無別我，是故我但有假名無有定實。
汝先說離受別有受者，以受分別受者是天是人，是皆不然。當知但有受無別受者，若謂離受別有我，是事不然。若離受有我，云何可得說是我相？若無相可說，則離受無我。若謂離身無我但身是我，是亦不然。何以故？身有生滅相，我則不爾。復次云何以受即名受者？若謂離受有受者，是亦不然。若不受五陰而有受者，應離五陰別有受者。眼等根可得，而實不可得，是故我不離受、不即是受，亦非無受、亦復非無，此是定義。是故當知，過去世有我者，是事不然。何以故？
Furthermore, there is the fault of inversion. Someone was a father in a former life and is a son in this one; on your view the self of that father and this son is one, and only the body differs — just as in going from one house to another the father is still the father, and does not become a different man by walking into a different house. But if there is a self, then these two would be one, and that is a very great fault. If you say that the same fault arises for the no-self view, where there is only a series of five aggregates, that is not so. Why? Because although the five aggregates run on in a series, at one time they serve and at another they do not. Grape juice may be drunk by one who keeps the precepts; grape wine may not; and if the wine turns to vinegar it may be drunk again. The series of five aggregates is like that — sometimes it serves and sometimes it does not. If there were one self from beginning to end, the fault would follow; with a series of aggregates it does not. It is only because the five aggregates come together that "self" is used as a provisional name, and there is nothing fixed there. As beams and rafters come together and there is a house, and apart from beams and rafters there is no separate house, so it is because the five aggregates come together that there is a self; apart from the five aggregates there is in truth no separate self. Hence the self has only a provisional name and no fixed reality.
What you said earlier — that apart from what is taken up there is a separate one who takes it up, and that by what is taken up one tells whether the taker is a god or a human — none of it holds. One should know there is only what is taken up, and no separate one who takes it up. If you say that apart from what is taken up there is a separate self, that will not do; for if there were a self apart from what is taken up, how could one state its mark? And if no mark can be stated, then apart from what is taken up there is no self. If you say instead that apart from the body there is no self and the body simply is the self, that too will not do. Why? Because the body has the mark of arising and ceasing, and the self does not. Furthermore, how could what is taken up be called, just as it stands, the one who takes it up? And if you say that apart from what is taken up there is one who takes it up, that too will not do: for if there were a taker who took up no aggregates, then apart from the five aggregates a separate taker ought to be got at, the way the eye and the other faculties can be got at — and in fact it cannot be got at. Therefore the self is not apart from what is taken up, nor identical with what is taken up, nor without it, nor is it nothing at all. This is the settled meaning. So one should know that "there was a self in a past age" will not do. Why?
This is the longest sustained stretch of prose in the treatise, and it is worth reading as what it is: a search. The opponent is not a fool. He keeps relocating the self to wherever it has not yet been looked for — it is the knower, it is the agent, it is the owner of the house — and each time Piṅgala goes and looks there.
The house-owner image is the opponent's strongest, and its refutation is the passage's best moment. An owner builds a house well or badly and lives in the result; so, he says, the self builds a body by its deeds and lives in the result. The reply is disarmingly physical. The owner can build because he has a shape, can be touched, and has strength in his arms. Your self, by your own account, has none of these — it is precisely the thing that is not the body. So it has no purchase on anything. A builder with no hands is not a subtle builder; he is not a builder. And then the small, unanswerable observations: the self that supposedly makes everything cannot stop making itself miserable, and the self that supposedly remembers cannot hold on to what it most wants to remember. If it ran the show, the show would look different.
Then the mouth watering, which is the most human sentence in the Middle Treatise. You watch someone else eat, and your own mouth fills — and if you are in company you would rather it did not, and it does anyway. The opponent offered this as proof of an inner self who anticipates and desires. Piṅgala turns it over: whatever that was, it happened without your consent, and the one thing it demonstrates is that nobody is in charge. This is not a proof of a self. It is a small daily demonstration that there isn't one.
And what is put in the self's place is not a void. It is beams and rafters. There is no house apart from its parts, and there is a house — you can live in it, it can leak, it belongs to someone. 但五陰和合故假名為我: "self" is a provisional name for aggregates working together. The vinegar detail makes the same point about time. Grape juice is permitted, wine is not, and vinegar is permitted again — same continuum, and at one stage it serves and at another it does not. A permanent self could not manage that, because nothing about it could change. Only a series can.
The Same Self, or a Different One?
過去我不作， 是事則不然；
過去世中我， 異今亦不然。
若謂有異者， 離彼應有今，
我住過去世， 而今我自生。
如是則斷滅， 失於業果報，
彼作而此受， 有如是等過。
先無而今有， 此中亦有過，
我則是作法， 亦為是無因。
That the past self does not make the present
will not do;
and that the self of a past age
is different from the present will not do either.
For if you say they are different,
then apart from that one there would be this one;
the self would stay behind in the past age
while the present self arose on its own.
Then there would be annihilation,
and the ripening of deeds would be lost;
that one would act and this one bear it —
such are the faults that follow.
That it was not before and is now
carries a fault as well:
the self would be a made thing,
and would also be without a cause.
過去世中我不作今我，是事不然。何以故？過去世中我與今我不異。若今我與過去世我異者，應離彼我而有今我，又過去世我亦應住彼，此身自更生。若爾者，即墮斷邊，失諸業果報。又彼人作罪，此人受報。有如是等無量過。又是我應先無而今有，是亦有過。我則是作法，亦是無因生。是故過去我不作今我，是事不然。復次：
That the self of a past age does not make the present self will not do. Why? Because the self of a past age is not different from the self of today. If the present self were different from the self of the past age, then this present self would have to exist apart from that one, and the self of the past age would stay back there while this body arose all over again on its own. In that case one falls into the extreme of annihilation, and the ripening of all deeds is lost — that person would do the wrong and this person bear the recompense. There are countless faults of this kind. Further, this self would have to be something that was not before and is now, and that is a fault too: the self would be a made thing, and would arise without a cause. Therefore "the past self does not make the present self" will not do. Furthermore:
如過去世中， 有我無我見，
若共若不共， 是事皆不然。
As regards a past age — the view
that there was a self, or that there was not,
or both together, or neither —
none of these will do.
如是推求過去世中邪見有、無、亦有亦無、非有非無，是諸邪見，先說因緣過故，是皆不然。
Searching in this way among the wrong views about a past age — that there was, that there was not, that there both was and was not, that there neither was nor was not — none of these views holds, for the reasons and faults already given.
Verse 9 does something readers regularly misread, so it is worth stating flatly. Nāgārjuna has just spent six verses and a great deal of prose refuting the claim that the past self is the present self. Now he refuses its denial as well. Both halves of the couplet are negations: not that the past self makes this one, and not that it is other than this one. He is not asserting sameness after all; he is closing the second door before anyone can walk through it.
And the door is worth closing, because the room behind it is the more frightening one. If the person who acted then is simply a different person from the one standing here, then two things collapse at once. Memory has no owner — the child's afternoon belongs to a stranger. And consequence has no address: 彼作而此受, "that one would act and this one bear it," which is not justice but arbitrary misfortune. Verse 12 adds the metaphysical cost. A self that was not there and now is would be a manufactured thing, and — having no earlier self to come from — a thing manufactured out of nothing at all.
What is left when both doors are shut is the same thing that has been left at every stage of this treatise: continuity without an identical carrier. The person who made a promise last year is neither the same person as the one keeping it today nor a different one, in the strict senses "same" and "different" require. That is not evasion. It is the honest description of what a stream is, and it is the reason a stream can be held responsible without needing a soul threaded through it.
The Future: God and Human, Permanent and Impermanent
我於未來世， 為作為不作？
如是之見者， 皆同過去世。
Will I come to be in a future age,
or will I not?
Views of this kind
are all as those about a past age.
我於未來世中，為作為不作？如是四句，如過去世中過咎，應在此中說。復次：
Will I come to be in a future age, or will I not? These four alternatives carry the same faults as those concerning a past age, and those faults should be stated here as well. Furthermore:
若天即是人， 則墮於常邊；
天則為無生， 常法不生故。
If the god is the very same as the human,
one falls into the extreme of permanence;
and the god would have no arising,
since what is permanent does not arise.
若天即是人，是則為常。若天不生人中，云何名為人？常法不生故。常亦不然。復次：
If the god is the very same as the human, that is permanence. And if the god is not born among humans, how is he to be called a human at all? Since what is permanent does not arise, permanence will not do. Furthermore:
若天異於人， 是即為無常；
若天異人者， 是則無相續。
If the god is different from the human,
that is impermanence;
and if the god is different from the human,
then there is no continuity.
若天與人異則為無常，無常則為斷滅等過，如先說過。若天與人異則無相續，若有相續不得言異。復次：
If the god and the human are different, that is impermanence, and impermanence brings on the fault of annihilation and the rest, as already stated. And if the god and the human are different there is no continuity between them; while if there is continuity, one cannot call them different. Furthermore:
若半天半人， 則墮於二邊，
常及於無常， 是事則不然。
If one were half god and half human,
one would fall into both extremes,
permanence together with impermanence —
and that will not do.
若眾生半身是天、半身是人，若爾則有常無常。半天是常、半人是無常，但是事不然。何以故？一身有二相過故。復次：
If half a sentient being's body were a god and half a human, then there would be both permanence and impermanence — the god half permanent and the human half impermanent. But this will not do. Why? Because of the fault of one body bearing two marks. Furthermore:
若常及無常， 是二俱成者，
如是則應成， 非常非無常。
If permanence and impermanence,
these two, were both established,
then there would also be established
neither-permanent-nor-impermanent.
若常無常二俱成者，然後成非常非無常，與常無常相違故。今實常無常不成，是故非常非無常亦不成。復次今生死無始，是亦不然。何以故？
Only if permanence and impermanence were both established could "neither permanent nor impermanent" be established afterward, since it stands in opposition to permanence and impermanence. But in fact permanence and impermanence are not established, and therefore neither-permanent-nor-impermanent is not established either. Furthermore, that birth and death are without beginning will not do either. Why?
法若定有來， 及定有去者，
生死則無始， 而實無此事。
If things definitely came from somewhere
and definitely went somewhere,
then birth and death would be without beginning;
but in fact there is no such thing.
法若決定有所從來、有所從去者，生死則應無始。是法以智慧推求，不得有所從來、有所從去。是故生死無始，是事不然。復次：
If things definitely came from somewhere and went somewhere, then birth and death would indeed be without beginning. But when things are searched out with wisdom, no place they come from and no place they go to can be found. Therefore "birth and death are without beginning" will not do. Furthermore:
今若無有常， 云何有無常，
亦常亦無常， 非常非無常？
If now there is no permanence,
how can there be impermanence,
or both permanent and impermanent,
or neither permanent nor impermanent?
若爾者，以智慧推求，無法可得常者，誰當有無常？因常有無常故。若二俱無者，云何有亦有常亦無常？若無有常無常，云何有非有常非無常？因亦有常亦無常故，有非有常非無常。是故依止過去世，常等四句不可得。有邊無邊等四句，依止未來世，是事不可得，今當說。何以故？
If so, then searching with wisdom, no thing can be found that is permanent — and then what would be impermanent? For impermanence depends on permanence. And if both are absent, how could there be "both permanent and impermanent"? And if there is neither permanence nor impermanence, how could there be "neither permanent nor impermanent"? For it is on the basis of "both permanent and impermanent" that there is "neither permanent nor impermanent." Therefore the four alternatives of permanence and the rest, resting on a past age, cannot be found. The four alternatives of having an end and having no end, which rest on a future age, cannot be found either, as will now be shown. Why?
Two arguments here do quiet damage to habits of mind that most readers did not know they had.
The first is the treatment of the half-and-half. When the same person is a god in one life and a human in the next, it is tempting to say: part of him persists and part of him does not — the deep part carries over, the surface part changes. This is by far the most popular contemporary version of the self, and Nāgārjuna's objection is not psychological but structural. Verse 18 shows that the fourth corner is parasitic on the third: "neither permanent nor impermanent" is a coherent position only if "both permanent and impermanent" is one first, since the fourth is defined by opposition to the third. Knock out the third and the fourth has nothing to stand on. Verse 20 then runs the whole ladder down at once — no permanence, so no impermanence, so no both, so no neither. Each rung was resting on the one above it, and the top rung was hanging from nothing.
The second is verse 19, which is easy to skim past and shouldn't be. Is saṃsāra beginningless? Buddhists have always said yes, and here Nāgārjuna says that as a fixed thesis it does not hold. His reason is precise: to say the round of birth and death stretches back without limit is to picture things definitely coming from somewhere and going somewhere — a real transit along a real line, extended infinitely. But Chapter 2 already showed there is no coming and no going to be found. Take away the transit and "infinitely long" has nothing to be a length of. Beginninglessness is a good corrective to the question "when did it start?" It is not a description of an actually infinite past.
Does the World Have an End?
若世間有邊， 云何有後世？
若世間無邊， 云何有後世？
If the world has an end,
how can there be a later life?
If the world has no end,
how can there be a later life?
若世間有邊，不應有後世，而今實有後世，是故世間有邊不然。若世間無邊，亦不應有後世，而實有後世，是故世間無邊亦不然。復次是二邊不可得。何以故？
If the world had an end there should be no later life; but in fact there is a later life, so "the world has an end" will not do. If the world had no end there should likewise be no later life; but in fact there is a later life, so "the world has no end" will not do either. Furthermore, neither of these two extremes can be found. Why?
五陰常相續， 猶如燈火炎；
以是故世間， 不應邊無邊。
The five aggregates run on in a series
like the flame of a lamp;
and for that reason the world
can be neither ended nor endless.
從五陰復生五陰，是五陰次第相續，如眾緣和合有燈炎。若眾緣不盡，燈則不滅，若盡則滅。是故不得說世間有邊無邊。復次：
From five aggregates five aggregates arise again, one set following on another in an unbroken series, as a lamp's flame is there when a host of conditions come together. So long as the conditions are not exhausted, the lamp does not go out; when they are exhausted, it goes out. Therefore one cannot say the world has an end or has no end. Furthermore:
若先五陰壞， 不因是五陰，
更生後五陰， 世間則有邊。
若先陰不壞， 亦不因是陰，
而生後五陰， 世間則無邊。
If the earlier five aggregates break up,
and not on the basis of those aggregates
a later five aggregates arise,
then the world has an end.
If the earlier aggregates do not break up,
and not on the basis of those aggregates
a later five aggregates arise,
then the world has no end.
若先五陰壞，不因是五陰更生後五陰，如是則世間有邊。若先五陰滅已，更不生餘五陰，是名為邊，邊名末後身。若先五陰不壞，不因是五陰而生後五陰，世間則無邊，是則為常。而實不爾，是故世間無邊。是事不然。世間有二種：國土世間、眾生世間。此是眾生世間。復次如四百觀中說：
If the earlier five aggregates break up and a later five aggregates arise not on the basis of them, then the world has an end. Once the earlier five aggregates have ceased and no further aggregates arise, that is what is called an end — "end" meaning the final body. And if the earlier five aggregates do not break up and a later five aggregates arise not on the basis of them, then the world has no end, and that is permanence. But in fact it is not so, and therefore "the world has no end" will not do. There are two kinds of world: the world as land and the world as sentient beings; what is meant here is the world of sentient beings. Furthermore, as it says in the Four Hundred Verses:
真法及說者， 聽者難得故，
如是則生死， 非有邊無邊。
Because the true Dharma, and one who teaches it,
and one who listens are hard to come by,
birth and death accordingly
neither have an end nor are endless.
不得真法因緣故，生死往來無有邊。或時得聞真法得道故，不得言無邊。今當更破亦有邊亦無邊。
Because one does not meet with the true Dharma, the coming and going of birth and death has no end; and because one may sometimes hear the true Dharma and gain the path, one cannot say it is endless. Now "both having an end and having no end" will be broken as well.
若世半有邊， 世間半無邊；
是則亦有邊， 亦無邊不然。
If the world were half with an end
and half without an end,
then "both having an end
and having no end" will not do.
若世間半有邊半無邊，則應是亦有邊亦無邊。若爾者，則一法二相，是事不然。何以故？
If the world were half with an end and half without, then it would be both ended and endless. But if so, one thing would bear two marks, and that will not do. Why?
彼受五陰者， 云何一分破？
一分而不破， 是事則不然。
受亦復如是， 云何一分破？
一分而不破， 是事亦不然。
As for the one who takes up the five aggregates —
how should one part of him break up
while another part does not?
That will not do.
And so too with what is taken up:
how should one part break up
while another part does not?
That will not do either.
受五陰者，云何一分破、一分不破？一事不得亦常亦無常。受亦如是，云何一分破、一分不破？常無常二相過故。是故世間亦有邊亦無邊則不然。今當破非有邊非無邊見。
How should the one who takes up the five aggregates break up in one part and not in another? A single thing cannot be both permanent and impermanent. And so with what is taken up: how should it break up in one part and not in another? The fault is the two marks, permanent and impermanent, at once. Therefore "the world both has an end and has no end" will not do. Now the view that it neither has an end nor lacks one will be broken.
若亦有無邊， 是二得成者，
非有非無邊， 是則亦應成。
If "both with an end and without" —
if these two were established,
then "neither with an end nor without"
would have to be established too.
與有邊相違故有無邊，如長相違有短。與有無相違，則有亦有亦無。與亦有亦無相違故，則有非有非無。若亦有邊亦無邊定成者，應有非有邊非無邊。何以故？因相待故。上已破亦有邊亦無邊第三句，今云何當有非有邊非無邊？以無相待故。如是推求，依止未來世有邊等四見皆不可得。復次：
It is by opposition to "having an end" that there is "having no end," as it is by opposition to long that there is short. By opposition to having and not having, there is "both having and not having." And by opposition to "both having and not having," there is "neither having nor not having." So if "both with an end and without an end" were definitely established, there would have to be "neither with an end nor without an end." Why? Because they depend on one another. But the third alternative, "both with an end and without an end," has already been broken above; so how could there now be "neither with an end nor without an end"? There is nothing left for it to depend on. Searching in this way, the four views of having an end and the rest, which rest on a future age, cannot be found at all. Furthermore:
The lamp flame in verse 22 is the image to keep from this chapter. Look at a burning lamp and ask whether the flame is finite or infinite, and the question is malformed. The flame is not a thing with an extent; it is a burning that continues exactly as long as oil and wick and air continue, and stops when they stop. It has no edge of its own to have or lack. Piṅgala's gloss is as plain as it can be: while the conditions are not exhausted the lamp does not go out; when they are exhausted it goes out. That is the whole answer to "does the world have an end?", and it is why the Buddha's silence on the question was not evasion.
Verses 27 and 28 close the half-and-half option in the only place it could survive: the person. Someone hoping to keep a bit of both wants to say that part of what he is will end and part will go on — the body perishes, something finer continues. The verse asks what could possibly divide such a thing into a perishing half and a permanent half. The five aggregates were the analysis; they are not a container with an upstairs. And the argument is stated twice, once for the one who takes up and once for what is taken up, precisely to block the move of relocating the permanent half from one to the other.
Then verse 29 finishes the pattern that has now run three times in this chapter: the fourth corner never has independent standing. "Neither" is defined by negating "both," "both" by conjoining the first two, and the first two by opposing each other — long and short, as Piṅgala says, and there is no such thing as long by itself. Once the earlier corners are gone the last one does not become the remaining truth; it evaporates with them. Readers who reach for "it's neither, really" as a safe resting place are reaching for the one corner that cannot stand alone.
Empty of Views, and of Anyone to Hold Them
一切法空故， 世間常等見，
何處於何時， 誰起是諸見？
Since all things are empty,
as for the views that the world is permanent and the rest —
in what place, at what time,
and who is it that gives rise to them?
上以聲聞法破諸見，今此大乘法中說。諸法從本以來畢竟空性，如是空性法中無人無法，不應生邪見正見。處名土地，時名日月歲數，誰名為人？是名諸見體。
若有常無常等決定見者，應當有人出生此見；破我故無人生是見。應有處所色法現見尚可破，何況時方！若有諸見者應有定實，若定則不應破。上來以種種因緣破，是故當知見無定體，云何得生？如偈說「何處於何時，誰起是諸見？」
Above, these views were broken by the śrāvaka teaching; now the matter is stated within the teaching of the Great Vehicle. Things have from the very beginning been ultimately empty in their nature, and in things of such an empty nature there is no person and no thing, so neither wrong views nor right views should arise there. "Place" means a stretch of ground; "time" means days and months and the count of years; and "who" means a person. These would be what such views consist in.
If there were fixed views of permanence and impermanence and the rest, there would have to be a person to give rise to them; but since the self has been refuted, there is no person to give rise to them. There would have to be a location — yet even material form, which is right there to be seen, can be refuted, how much more time and direction! If there were such views they would have to be fixed and real, and if they were fixed they could not be refuted at all. But they have been refuted above on every sort of ground. So one should know that the views have no fixed substance; and how then could they arise? As the verse says: "in what place, at what time, and who is it that gives rise to them?"
The chapter has spent twenty-nine verses refuting views one at a time. Verse 30 stops refuting and asks a different kind of question: where would such a view even happen, when, and to whom? Every act of holding an opinion needs a holder, a place, and a moment. The treatise has now dismantled all three. There is no findable person to be the subject, and Chapter 19 left time with no findable present for the holding to occur in.
This can look like a trick, and it is worth saying carefully why it is not. Nothing here denies that people hold opinions; the whole treatise has been arguing with people who hold them. What is denied is that a view is a fixed thing lodged in a fixed self at a fixed instant. Piṅgala gives the test himself, and it is a good one: 若定則不應破 — if something were genuinely fixed, it could not be refuted. Anything that argument can dissolve was never solid to begin with. The refutability of these views is the evidence for their emptiness, not merely the result of it.
Note also the seam in Piṅgala's gloss. He says openly that the chapter has been breaking views by the śrāvaka teaching up to now, and that this verse states the matter in the Great Vehicle's way. Two chapters, two idioms, one conclusion — Chapter 26 gave the twelve links exactly as the older tradition gave them, and Chapter 27 has been working with the aggregates and the four alternatives in the older manner. Only at the very end does the language of universal emptiness return. The treatise is showing, structurally, that these were never two teachings.
The Homage That Closes the Treatise
瞿曇大聖主， 憐愍說是法，
悉斷一切見， 我今稽首禮。
Gautama, great sage and lord,
out of compassion taught this Dharma
that cuts off every view entirely:
to him I now bow my head.
一切見者，略說則五見，廣說則六十二見，為斷是諸見故說法。大聖主瞿曇，是無量無邊不可思議智慧者，是故我稽首禮。
"All views" means, stated briefly, the five views; stated at length, the sixty-two views. It was in order to cut off these views that he taught the Dharma. Gautama, the great sage and lord, is one whose wisdom is measureless, boundless, and beyond conceiving; and therefore I bow my head to him.
The last word of the Middle Treatise is not an argument. It is an act of homage, and it answers the one that opened Chapter 1. There, Nāgārjuna bowed to the Buddha for teaching dependent arising, the good quieting of all elaboration. Here, four hundred and forty-six verses later, he bows again — for a Dharma that cuts off every view. The book is a single gesture with a very long middle, and the two ends of it are the same bow.
Which tells you what the twenty-seven chapters were for. Not to install a better theory in the reader. A reader who finishes this treatise holding the position that nothing exists, or that everything is illusion, or that emptiness is the true nature of things, is holding a view, and the treatise was written against views. Piṅgala's gloss counts them: five in the short list, sixty-two in the long one, and the Buddha taught in order to cut them all off — 悉斷, without remainder. Chapter 13 said the same thing more bluntly: those for whom emptiness itself becomes a view are called incurable. The argument was never meant to leave you with a conclusion. It was meant to leave you with your hands open.
And notice the word that carries the verse: 憐愍, compassion — pity, tenderness for those who suffer. It is a strange word to find at the end of the most rigorous piece of reasoning in Buddhist literature, and it is not decoration. The whole demolition was in service of something quite specific: people are in pain because they grip, and they grip because they take what they hold to be solid. Every argument in this book has been a way of loosening one finger. Nāgārjuna's closing claim about the Buddha is not that he was right. It is that he did this out of kindness.
The treatise ends here, and it ends by bowing. That order matters. The last thing the reader is shown is not the emptiness but the person who taught it, and the posture of someone who has understood — which turns out to be gratitude rather than possession.
Key Terms
| Term | Chinese | What it means here |
|---|---|---|
| the twelve links | 十二因緣 | Ignorance, formations, consciousness, name-and-form, the six sense-fields, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, aging-and-death. The Buddha's own account of how suffering assembles itself, set out here without a single negation. |
| name-and-form | 名色 | Nāma-rūpa — the mental and material sides of a new life taken together, the fourth link, the point at which an embryo becomes something with both a body and an inner side. |
| the six sense-fields | 六入 | Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind considered as the openings through which contact occurs. Elsewhere in the treatise rendered "the twelve sense-fields" (十二入) when object as well as faculty is counted. |
| what is taken up / the one who takes it up | 受／受者 | Upādāna and its supposed agent: the five aggregates as appropriated, and the self imagined to be doing the appropriating. Chapter 27 turns on the finding that only the first of the pair can be got at. |
| a provisional name | 假名 | A designation that genuinely applies but names no self-standing thing — "house" for beams and rafters working together, "self" for aggregates working together. Not a fiction; a name without an owner behind it. |
| the sixty-two views | 六十二見 | The classical inventory of speculative positions about self and world, from the Brahmajāla Sutta. Chapter 27's four-cornered questions about past and future are their root; the five views (五見) are the short list. |
| the Four Hundred Verses | 四百觀 | Āryadeva's Catuḥśataka, quoted here by Piṅgala. Āryadeva was Nāgārjuna's direct disciple, and this is the commentary's one citation of the wider Madhyamaka literature. |