The Three Marks, and the Lamp
This page carries Gate Four, the longest of the treatise's later gates and the one that overlaps most closely with the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Its target is the Abhidharma's definition of a conditioned thing: whatever arises, abides, and ceases. Nāgārjuna's question is whether those three marks are themselves things that arise, abide, and cease. Say yes and the marks need marks forever; say no and an unconditioned item is being asked to certify conditioned ones. The gate then follows the opponent's two escape routes — a self-sustaining set of seven co-arising dharmas, and a lamp that lights itself — and closes both, before refusing even the elegant final proposal that nirvāṇa's mark is its having none.
A Note on the Overlap with the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Several verses in this gate appear, in nearly identical Chinese, in the seventh chapter of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā — the arising-of-arising verses and the entire lamp sequence. Where the wording matches, we have used the same English already standing on this site's page for that chapter, so that the two treatises speak with one voice. Where this text differs — most noticeably in reading 燈然, the lamp burning, where the root treatise reads 燈生, the lamp arising — we follow this text.
For readers coming from the root treatise, the difference in treatment is instructive. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā gives these arguments in verse with Piṅgala's commentary supplying the connective reasoning; here Nāgārjuna supplies it himself, and the result is tighter and more openly conversational.
1. Neither the Conditioned nor the Unconditioned Has a Mark
The verse states the conclusion first, as the treatise's verses usually do, and the prose then earns it. But before anything can be refuted, the opponent must say what a mark of the conditioned is — and the answer, when it comes, is beautifully concrete.
復次，一切法空。何以故？
Furthermore, all things are empty. Why?
有為及無為， 二法俱無相；
以無有相故， 二法則皆空。
The conditioned and the unconditioned —
neither of the two has any mark;
and because they have no mark,
both of them alike are empty.
有為法不以相成。
問曰：「何等是有為相？」
答曰：「萬物各有有為相，如牛，以角、峯、垂胡、尾端有毛，是為牛相。如瓶，以底平、腹大、頸細、脣麁，是為瓶相。如車，以輪、軸、轅、軛，是為車相。如人，以頭、目、腹、脊、肩、臂、手、足，是為人相。如是生、住、滅，若是有為法相者，為是有為？為是無為？」
Conditioned things are not established by a mark.
Question: What are the marks of the conditioned?
Answer: Each of the myriad things has its own conditioned marks. An ox: by its horns, its hump, its dewlap, and the hair at the tip of its tail — these are the marks of an ox. A pot: by its flat base, wide belly, narrow neck, and coarse lip — these are the marks of a pot. A cart: by its wheels, axle, shafts, and yoke — these are the marks of a cart. A person: by head, eyes, belly, spine, shoulders, arms, hands, and feet — these are the marks of a person. Now, arising, abiding, and ceasing — if these are the marks of a conditioned thing, are they themselves conditioned, or unconditioned?
The four examples are doing quiet work. An ox, a pot, a cart, and a person are recognized by lists of observable features, and the point of walking through all four is to fix what "mark" means before the argument turns: a mark is what you point to. Then the trap closes in a single sentence. Arising, abiding, and ceasing were supposed to be marks in exactly this sense — the features by which one recognizes a conditioned thing as conditioned. So they must be the kind of item one can point to. And whatever can be pointed to is either a conditioned thing or an unconditioned one; there is no third shelf to put them on.
The Chinese source has a rare character here for the ox's dewlap, written in the Taishō edition as a composite; we give it as 垂胡, the reading the commentarial tradition supplies.
2. Conditioned, and the Regress Never Stops
The opponent takes the first horn, and Nāgārjuna's reply handles both at once — the endless regress on one side, and on the other the observation that an unconditioned thing, having no distinguishable features of its own, cannot be what distinguishes anything.
問曰：「若是有為有何過？」
Question: And if they are conditioned, what fault is there?
答曰：
「若生是有為， 復應有三相；
若生是無為， 何名有為相？
Answer:
If arising is conditioned,
it must have the three marks in turn;
and if arising is unconditioned,
how is it a mark of the conditioned?
「若生是有為者，即應有三相，是三相復應有三相，如是展轉則為無窮。住、滅亦爾。若生是無為者，云何無為與有為作相？離生、住、滅，誰能知是生？復次，分別生、住、滅故有生，無為不可分別，是故無生、住、滅亦爾。生、住、滅空故，有為法空；有為法空故，無為法亦空，因有為故有無為；有為、無為法空故，一切法皆空。」
If arising is conditioned, it must itself have the three marks; and those three marks must have three marks in turn; and so on and on, without end. The same holds for abiding and for ceasing. And if arising is unconditioned, how should something unconditioned serve as a mark of the conditioned? Apart from arising, abiding, and ceasing, who could even know that this is arising? Furthermore, it is by distinguishing arising, abiding, and ceasing that there is arising at all — and the unconditioned admits of no distinguishing, so there is no arising there, and the same holds for abiding and ceasing. Since arising, abiding, and ceasing are empty, conditioned things are empty; and since conditioned things are empty, the unconditioned is empty too, for it is in dependence on the conditioned that there is the unconditioned. And since conditioned and unconditioned things are alike empty, all things are empty.
The second horn is worth dwelling on, because the regress gets all the attention and this is the deeper objection. Suppose arising is unconditioned — exempt from the system, and so free of the regress. What has the opponent bought? An unconditioned thing, in this scheme, is defined entirely by negation: it does not arise, does not abide, does not cease. It has no positive features. And something with no positive features cannot be the feature by which anything else is recognized. The escape from the regress purchases exemption at the cost of the very job the mark was hired for.
Notice also what is not being said. Nāgārjuna is not denying that things come into being and pass away. He is denying that "arising" can be catalogued as one more item in the inventory, standing alongside the things that arise. The moment you make it an item, you must ask what kind of item it is — and both answers destroy it.
3. The Seven Dharmas That Hold Each Other Up
Now comes the Abhidharma's actual solution to the regress, and it is ingenious. Do not let the marks require ever more marks; let them close into a loop. When anything arises, seven items arise together — the thing itself, its three marks, and a second-order arising, abiding, and ceasing. The root arising produces the other six; and the arising-of-arising produces the root arising in return. The regress is stopped at level two by a mutual embrace.
問曰：「汝說三相復有三相，是故無窮，生不應是有為者。今當說：
Question: You say the three marks have three marks in turn, and so run on without end, and that arising therefore cannot be conditioned. Let me now say this:
「生生之所生， 生於彼本生；
本生之所生， 還生於生生。
What the arising-of-arising gives rise to
is that root arising there;
and what the root arising gives rise to
is, in return, the arising-of-arising.
「法生時，通自體七法共生：一、法，二、生，三、住，四、滅，五、生生，六、住住，七、滅滅。是七法中，本生除自體，能生六法；生生能生本生，本生還生生生，是故三相雖是有為而非無窮。住、滅亦如是。」
When a thing arises, seven things arise together, counting the thing itself: first, the thing; second, arising; third, abiding; fourth, ceasing; fifth, the arising-of-arising; sixth, the abiding-of-abiding; seventh, the ceasing-of-ceasing. Among these seven, the root arising, excepting only its own self, gives rise to the other six; and the arising-of-arising gives rise to the root arising, while the root arising in turn gives rise to the arising-of-arising. So although the three marks are conditioned, there is no endless regress. The same holds for abiding and for ceasing.
This is a real position, not a straw man; it is the Sarvāstivāda solution, worked out with care, and it does exactly what it sets out to do. The regress is genuinely halted, because the second level curls back on the first instead of demanding a third. Nāgārjuna will not attack the loop's elegance. He will attack the one thing a loop cannot supply — a starting point. Each of the two arisings is supposed to produce the other, which means each must already be there in order to do its producing, and neither can be there until the other has done it.
4. Which of the Two Was There First?
The reply comes in three verses, each cutting off one way the loop might get started: the arising-of-arising doing the work, the root arising doing it, and — the opponent's last resort — the work being done while the producer is itself still in the act of arising.
答曰：
「若謂是生生， 還能生本生，
生生從本生， 何能生本生？
Answer:
If you say the arising-of-arising
can in turn give rise to the root arising —
the arising-of-arising comes from the root arising,
so how can it give rise to the root arising?
「若謂生生能生本生，本生不生生生，生生何能生本生？
If you say the arising-of-arising gives rise to the root arising, then the root arising does not give rise to the arising-of-arising — and how, then, can the arising-of-arising give rise to the root arising?
「若謂是本生， 能生彼生生，
本生從彼生， 何能生生生？
If you say the root arising
can give rise to that arising-of-arising —
the root arising comes from that one,
so how can it give rise to the arising-of-arising?
「若謂本生能生生生，生生生已還生本生，是事不然。何以故？生生法應生本生，是故名生生；而本生實自未生，云何能生生生？
「若謂生生生時能生本生者，是事亦不然。何以故？
If you say the root arising gives rise to the arising-of-arising, and that the arising-of-arising, once arisen, gives rise in return to the root arising — this is not so. Why? Because it is the arising-of-arising that is supposed to give rise to the root arising, which is exactly why it bears that name; yet the root arising has in truth not itself arisen — so how could it give rise to the arising-of-arising?
And if you say that the arising-of-arising gives rise to the root arising while it is itself arising, this too is not so. Why?
「是生生生時， 或能生本生；
生生尚未生， 何能生本生？
While the arising-of-arising is arising,
it might perhaps give rise to the root arising —
but the arising-of-arising has not yet arisen,
so how can it give rise to the root arising?
「是生生生時，或能生本生，而是生生自體未生，不能生本生。
While the arising-of-arising is arising, it might perhaps give rise to the root arising; but the arising-of-arising's own body has not yet arisen, and so it cannot give rise to the root arising.
The third move is the one that matters, because "while it is arising" is where every such argument in Madhyamaka goes to die, and it is worth seeing why. The opponent, blocked from saying the producer acts before it exists or after it is already complete, reaches for the moment in between — the arising-of-arising is neither absent nor finished, but underway, and does its work then. The reply is a single observation: a thing that is underway is not yet there. Half-arisen is not arisen. Whatever is still coming into being has no completed nature with which to act on anything else.
The same instant will be examined again from the other end in Gate Twelve, where "arising-now" is taken as a candidate in its own right, and it will fail for the same reason. Readers of the root treatise will recognize the move from its second chapter, where the ground currently being walked on turns out to be neither the ground already crossed nor the ground not yet reached.
5. The Lamp That Lights Itself
Here is the opponent's most attractive image, and the reason it deserves its fame is that the intuition behind it is so strong. Of course a lamp lights itself — you can see the lamp. If one thing can illuminate both itself and its surroundings in a single act, why should arising not likewise give rise to itself and to what it arises with?
「若謂是生生生時，能自生亦生彼；如燈然時，能自照亦照彼。是事不然。何以故？
And if you say that while the arising-of-arising is arising it gives rise both to itself and to the other — just as a lamp, while it burns, lights both itself and other things — this is not so. Why?
「燈中自無闇， 住處亦無闇，
破闇乃名照， 燈為何所照？
In the lamp itself there is no darkness,
nor is there darkness where it stands;
to dispel darkness is what lighting means —
so what is it that the lamp lights?
「燈體自無闇，明所住處亦無闇。若燈中無闇，住處亦無闇，云何言燈自照亦能照彼？破闇故名為照，燈不自破闇，亦不破彼闇，是故燈不自照亦不照彼。是故汝先說燈自照亦照彼，生亦如是自生亦生彼者，是事不然。」
問曰：「若燈然時能破闇，是故燈中無闇、住處亦無闇。」
The body of the lamp has no darkness in it, and where its light rests there is no darkness either. If there is no darkness in the lamp, and none where it rests, how can one say the lamp lights itself and lights other things as well? It is called lighting because it dispels darkness; and the lamp neither dispels darkness within itself nor dispels darkness elsewhere — and so the lamp neither lights itself nor lights others. Therefore what you said before, that a lamp lights itself and lights others, and that arising is likewise self-arising and other-arising, is not so.
Question: It is precisely because the lamp, while burning, dispels the darkness that there is no darkness in the lamp and none where it rests.
答曰：
「云何燈然時， 而能破於闇？
此燈初然時， 不能及於闇。
Answer:
How, while the lamp is burning,
could it dispel any darkness?
When this lamp is first lit
it does not reach the darkness at all.
「若燈然時不能到闇，若不到闇不應言破闇。復次：
If, while the lamp burns, it cannot reach the darkness — and if it does not reach the darkness, one ought not to say that it dispels the darkness. Furthermore:
「燈若不及闇， 而能破闇者，
燈在於此間， 則破一切闇。
If a lamp that does not reach the darkness
can nevertheless dispel it,
then a lamp standing here
would dispel all the darkness there is.
「若謂燈雖不到闇而力能破闇者，此處然燈應破一切世間闇，俱不及故。而實此間然燈不能破一切世間闇，是故汝說燈雖不及闇而力能破闇者，是事不然。
「復次，
If you say the lamp has the power to dispel darkness though it never reaches it, then lighting a lamp in this room ought to dispel all the darkness in the world, since it equally fails to reach any of it. And in fact a lamp lit here cannot dispel all the darkness in the world. So your claim that the lamp has the power to dispel darkness though it never reaches it is not so.
Furthermore:
「若燈能自照， 亦能照於彼，
闇亦應如是， 自蔽亦蔽彼。
If a lamp can light itself
and can also light other things,
then darkness should be the same:
obscuring itself and obscuring others.
「若謂燈能自照亦照彼，闇與燈相違，亦應自蔽亦蔽彼。若闇與燈相違，不能自蔽亦不蔽彼，而言燈能自照亦照彼者，是事不然，是故汝喻非也。
If you say the lamp lights itself and lights others, then darkness, standing contrary to the lamp, ought likewise to obscure itself and obscure others. And if darkness, contrary to the lamp, can neither obscure itself nor obscure others, then to say that the lamp lights itself and lights others is not so — and your simile therefore fails.
Three distinct arguments are folded together here, and they are worth separating. The first is definitional: lighting means dispelling darkness, and there is no darkness inside a lamp for it to dispel — so whatever a lit lamp is doing to itself, it is not what the word "lighting" names. The second is about reach: while the lamp is being lit it has not yet reached the darkness, and a power that works without reaching is a power with no boundary, so one candle would empty the world of night. The third is the parity test, and it is the most elegant. If self-application is a genuine capacity that light has, darkness should have it too, since darkness is light's exact contrary. But nothing darkens itself. The capacity was never real; it was an artifact of how we speak.
And that last point is where the argument bites. "The lamp lights itself" sounds like a description of an act, on the model of "the lamp lights the room." It is not. It is a way of saying that the lamp is visible. Once the two are pulled apart, the simile has nothing left to lend to arising — and arising was the only reason the lamp was brought in.
6. Arising Cannot Give Rise to Itself
With the simile gone, the underlying claim is examined directly, and disposed of in a dilemma so compact it takes four lines.
「如生能自生亦生彼者，今當更說：
「此生若未生， 云何能自生？
若生已自生， 已生何用生？
As for arising giving rise to itself and to others, let more now be said:
If this arising has not yet arisen,
how can it give rise to itself?
And if, having arisen, it gives rise to itself —
having arisen, what use is arising?
「此生未生時，應若生已生、若未生生。若未生而生，未生名未有，云何能自生？若謂生已而生，生已即是生，何須更生？生已更無生，作已更無作，是故生不自生。若生不自生，云何生彼？汝說自生亦生彼，是事不然。住、滅亦如是。
「是故生、住、滅是有為相，是事不然；生、住、滅有為相不成故，有為法空。
「有為法空故，無為法亦空。何以故？滅有為名無為涅槃，是故涅槃亦空。
When this arising has not yet arisen, it must arise either having already arisen or not yet having arisen. If it arises without having arisen — "not yet arisen" means "not yet there," so how could it give rise to itself? And if you say it arises having already arisen, then having arisen is simply that: arisen — what further need is there of arising? Once arisen there is no further arising, as once made there is no further making. Therefore arising does not give rise to itself. And if arising does not give rise to itself, how should it give rise to another? So your claim that it gives rise to itself and to others is not so. The same holds for abiding and for ceasing.
Therefore that arising, abiding, and ceasing are the marks of the conditioned is not so; and since arising, abiding, and ceasing are not established as marks of the conditioned, conditioned things are empty.
And since conditioned things are empty, unconditioned things are empty too. Why? Because the ceasing of the conditioned is what is called the unconditioned, nirvāṇa — and therefore nirvāṇa too is empty.
"Once arisen there is no further arising, as once made there is no further making" is the whole argument in a line, and it is the same principle Gate Two used against a pre-existing fruit. An act is exhausted by its completion. Nothing that is finished stands in need of the operation that finished it, and nothing that has not begun is available to perform one.
7. Is Marklessness Nirvāṇa's Mark? The Unmarked Robe
The gate closes with a last, genuinely clever proposal. Grant that the unconditioned has no marks; make that very absence its mark. The opponent gives a lovely illustration: among a pile of patterned robes, one is plain, and "fetch the unmarked one" identifies it perfectly well. Why should nirvāṇa not be picked out the same way — as the place where arising, abiding, and ceasing are not?
「復次，無生、無住、無滅，名無為相；無生、住、滅則無法，無法不應作相。
「若謂無相是涅槃相。是事不然。若無相是涅槃相，以何相故知是無相？若以有相知是無相，云何名無相？若以無相知是無相，無相是無，無則不可知。
Furthermore: no arising, no abiding, no ceasing — that is what is called the mark of the unconditioned. But where there is no arising, abiding, or ceasing, there is no thing at all; and what is not a thing cannot serve as a mark.
If you say that marklessness is the mark of nirvāṇa, this is not so. If marklessness is nirvāṇa's mark, by what mark do you know it to be markless? If you know it to be markless by some mark that it has, how is it markless? And if you know it to be markless by marklessness, then marklessness is nothing at all — and nothing cannot be known.
「若謂如眾衣皆有相，唯一衣無相，正以無相為相故，人言取無相衣，如是可知無相衣可取；如是生、住、滅是有為相，無生住滅處當知是無為相。是故無相是涅槃者，是事不然。何以故？生、住、滅種種因緣皆空，不得有有為相，云何因此知無為？汝得何有為決定相，知無相處是無為？是故汝說眾相衣中無相衣喻涅槃無相者，是事不然。又衣喻，後第五門中廣說。」
Suppose you say: among a set of robes all of which are patterned, one alone is unmarked; and precisely by taking its having no marking as its marking, a person may say "fetch the unmarked robe," and by this the unmarked robe can be known and fetched. Just so — arising, abiding, and ceasing are the marks of the conditioned, and where arising, abiding, and ceasing are absent, one should know that this is the mark of the unconditioned; and so marklessness is nirvāṇa. This is not so. Why? Because arising, abiding, and ceasing have been shown empty by every kind of reasoning, and there is no mark of the conditioned to be had at all — so how, on the strength of it, should you know the unconditioned? What settled mark of the conditioned have you got hold of, by which you know that the place lacking it is the unconditioned? Therefore your simile of the unmarked robe among the patterned ones, standing for nirvāṇa's marklessness, is not so. The robe simile will be dealt with more fully in the fifth gate below.
是故有為法皆空；有為法空故，無為法亦空；有為、無為法空故，我亦空。三事空故，一切法皆空。
Therefore all conditioned things are empty; and since conditioned things are empty, unconditioned things are empty too; and since conditioned and unconditioned things are empty, the self is empty as well. These three being empty, all things are empty.
The refutation is exact, and it turns on something the robe example quietly assumes. "Fetch the unmarked robe" works — but only because you can see the patterns on all the others. The absence identifies the plain robe by contrast with a presence you already have in hand. Take away the patterns and the instruction becomes useless: in a pile of robes none of which you can see, "the unmarked one" picks out nothing.
That is exactly the position the opponent is in. Everything in this gate has gone to showing that arising, abiding, and ceasing are not to be had as settled marks of anything. So there are no patterns left on the other robes. And with nothing to contrast against, "the place where the three marks are absent" has no referent — not because nirvāṇa has been abolished, but because the method proposed for identifying it was borrowing all its content from marks now shown to be empty. Nāgārjuna's question is a good one to end on: what settled mark of the conditioned have you got hold of? The whole gate has been an answer: none.
Part Four Complete
This closes Gate Four: the three marks of the conditioned put to the question, and failing whether they are called conditioned or unconditioned; the Sarvāstivāda's seven co-arising dharmas, whose mutual embrace turns out to have no place to begin; the lamp that lights itself, shown to be a fact about visibility rather than an act of illumination; arising itself, unable to give rise to what has not begun or to what is already finished; and the last proposal, that nirvāṇa is marked by having no mark, which borrows all its force from marks that are no longer there. Part Five takes up the next three gates together, where the questioning moves from the marks themselves to what a mark could possibly attach to.
Continue to Part 5 — Mark and Marked, One and Different, Existent and Non-existent →