s (_sa@msara_) and also he
does not trouble himself about the existence or non-existence of
any of the appearances. Thus it is said in the Ratnaku@tasutra that
howsoever carefully one may search one cannot discover consciousness
(_citta_); what cannot be perceived cannot be said to exist,
and what does not exist is neither past, nor future, nor present, and
as such it cannot be said to have any nature at all; and that which
has no nature is subject neither to origination nor to extinction.
He who through his false knowledge (_viparyyasa_) does not comprehend
the falsehood of all appearances, but thinks them to be
real, works and suffers the cycles of rebirth (_sa@msara_). Like all
illusions, though false these appearances can produce all the harm
of rebirth and sorrow.

It may again be objected that if there is nothing true
according to the nihilists (_s'unyavadins_), then their statement that
there is no origination or extinction is also not true. Candrakirtti
in replying to this says that with s'unyavadins the truth is absolute
silence. When the S'unyavadin sages argue, they only accept for
the moment what other people regard as reasons, and deal with
them in their own manner to help them to come to a right
comprehension of all appearances. It is of no use to say, in spite
of all arguments tending to show the falsehood of all appearances,
that they are testified by our experience, for the whole thing that
we call "our experience" is but false illusion inasmuch as these
phenomena have no true essence.

When the doctrine of pratityasamutpada is described as "this
being that is," what is really meant is that things can only be
indicated as mere appearances one after another, for they have
no essence or true nature. Nihilism (_s'unyavada_) also means just
this. The true meaning of pratityasamutpada or s'unyavada is
this, that there is no truth, no essence in all phenomena that

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appear [Footnote ref 1]. As the phenomena have no essence they are neither
produced nor destroyed; they really neither come nor go. They
are merely the appearance of maya or illusion. The void (_s'unya_)
does not mean pure negation, for that is relative to some kind of
position. It simply means that none of the appearances have any
intrinsic nature of their own (_ni@hsvabhavatvam_).

The Madhyamaka or S'unya system does not hold that anything
has any essence or nature (svabhava) of its own; even
heat cannot be said to be the essence of