y it are
ever produced. Those who perceive them to suffer production are
really traversing the reason of vacuity (_khe_), for all production
is but false imposition on the vacuity. Since the unborn is
perceived as being born, the essence then is the absence of

____________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: The very name Alata@santi is absolutely Buddhistic. Compare
Nagarjuna's karika, _B.T.S._, p. 206, where he quotes a verse from the
_S'ataka_.]

[Footnote 2: The use of the word dharma in the sense of appearance or
entity is peculiarly Buddhistic. The Hindu sense is that given by Jaimini,
"Codanalak@sa@nah arthah, dharmah." Dharma is determined by the injunctions
of the Vedas.]

428

production, for it being of the nature of absence of production it
could never change its nature. Everything has a beginning and
an end and is therefore false. The existence of all things is like
a magical or illusory elephant (_mayahasti_) and exists only as far
as it merely appears or is related to experience. There is thus
the appearance of production, movement and things, but the one
knowledge (_vijnana_) is the unborn, unmoved, the unthingness
(_avastutva_), the cessation (s'antam). As the movement of
burning charcoal is perceived as straight or curved, so it is the
movement (_spandita_) of consciousness that appears as the perceiving
and the perceived. All the attributes (e.g. straight or
curved) are imposed upon the charcoal fire, though in reality it
does not possess them; so also all the appearances are imposed
upon consciousness, though in reality they do not possess
them. We could never indicate any kind of causal relation
between the consciousness and its appearance, which are therefore
to be demonstrated as unthinkable (_acintya_). A thing
(_dravya_) is the cause of a thing (_dravya_), and that which is not
a thing may be the cause of that which is not a thing, but all
the appearances are neither things nor those which are not
things, so neither are appearances produced from the mind
(_citta_) nor is the mind produced by appearances. So long as
one thinks of cause and effect he has to suffer the cycle of
existence (_sa@msara_), but when that notion ceases there is no
sa@msara. All things are regarded as being produced from a
relative point of view only (_sa@mv@rti_), there is therefore nothing
permanent (_s'as'vata_). Again, no existent things are produced,
hence there cannot be an