"...The roots of Nagarjuna's philosophy become evident when we compare this section of The Stanzas with one of the Sutras. In the "Discourse to Vacchagotta on Fire" the wandering monk Vacchagotta asks the Buddha about the status of the Tathagata. The Buddha responds with the familiar four-fold negation:
I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is after dying."
I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is not after dying."
I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata both is and is not after dying."
I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata neither is nor is not after dying."(16)
When Vacchagotta then asks, "What is the peril the revered Gotama beholds that he thus does not approach any of these (speculative) views?" we are told,
Holding a view, the wilds of views, the wriggling of views, the scuffling of views, the fetter of views; it is accompanied by anguish, distress, misery, fever; it does not conduce to turning away from, nor to dispassion, stopping, calming, superknowledge, awakening, nor to nibbana (nirvana). I, Vaccha, beholding that this is a peril, thus do not approach any of these (speculative) views.(17)
The purpose of the fourfold negation is not to promote a philosophical agnosticism about our ability to reach a right view of the Tathagata. The question regarding the status of the Buddha is not to be abandoned in frustration, but rather transformed. The mind's normal way of raising the question, i.e. in terms of inherent existence or nonexistence, must be overcome in order to reach a right view.
If the Tathagata is not a god and nirvana is not ultimate reality, then is emptiness itself to be thought of as ultimate foundation of all? Enthroned as ultimate reality, emptiness readily functions like
metaphysical substratum or ontological ground. Apparently Nagarjuna was well aware of this danger. For instance, in The Stanzas 13:8 he complains that "those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible." Then in 24:13 Nagarjuna accepts no blame for those who make emptiness itself their obsession. And but two verses before this we find the famous monitum: "A wrongly perceived emptiness ruins a person of meager intelligence. It is like a snake that is wrongly grasped or knowledge that is wrongly cultivated."(18) In claiming that all viewpoints are empty, Nagarjuna does not intend to promote emptiness as a metaphysical equivalent to Being. Emptiness itself is empty and not to be taken as a metaphysical foundation. This is the reason Nagarjuna refrains from making the statement "all is empty" despite the fact that the term emptiness appears everywhere in The Stanzas. Instead, we consistently find statements such as "all this is empty" (emphasis mine).(19) There is no emptiness beyond the emptiness of particular things. Thus, not only are the conceptual categories of the Abhidharma empty, but also the teachings of the Buddha as well. And beyond even this, neither is emptiness itself to be reified into an absolute.
Is Nagarjuna then a nihilist? Many of his opponents have thought so. Nagarjuna's use of the fourfold negation precludes any attempt to hypostatize emptiness into a metaphysical foundation. Are we not left then with dread before the utter meaninglessness of life? If emptiness is not Tillich's Being Itself, is it Nietzsche's nicht Sein? In a less radical vein, we might ask if Nagarjuna is an agnostic about the metaphysical nature of things. Does emptiness imply that we are simply to stop thinking about nirvana and the Tathagata? But for Nagarjuna, emptiness is more than the acid of deconstruction applied to our presuppositions regarding the inherent existence (svabhava) of religious ultimates. Right views of nirvana and the Tathagata can be realized only when these presuppositions are transformed. The right view of the teachings of the Buddha arises when subjectivity is set free from its obsession with svabhava. Nagarjuna's fourfold negation of nirvana and the Tathagata does not lead to nihilism, but rather to awakening.
Emptiness, as employed in The Stanzas, is neither a metaphysics nor a nihilism. Nagarjuna sees it as identical with dependent arising itself. "We state that whatever is dependent arising, that is emptiness. That is dependent upon convention. That itself is the middle path."(20) This verse of The Stanzas also links emptiness with the Buddha's middle path. In this respect, emptiness is Nagarjuna's restatement of the Buddha's practical religious wisdom regarding metaphysics and nihilism. In the Buddhist tradition, wisdom (prajna) has to do with the reorientation of subjectivity which leads to a release from attachments. Wisdom releases the person from obsession. More positively stated, the aim of wisdom is to liberate one for relating to the world in freedom. Herein lies the scholarly consensus regarding emptiness in The Stanzas.(21) Emptiness should not be understood metaphysically. Neither should it be mistaken as a form of nihilism. Emptiness, in The Stanzas, is equivalent to the Buddhist wisdom of nonattachment."
