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Updated: May 23, 2025
It is for this reason, namely that they admit neither being nor not-being but something between the two, that the followers of Nâgârjuna are known as the Mâdhyamikas or school of the middle doctrine, though the European reader is tempted to say that their theories are extreme to the point of being a reductio ad absurdum of the whole system.
The two schools are the Yogâcâras and Mâdhyamikas. Probably the Mâdhyamikas are the older school. Both schools attach importance to the distinction between relative and absolute knowledge. Relative knowledge is true for human beings living in the world: that is to say it is not more false than the world of appearance in which they live. The Hinayanist doctrines are true in this sense.
For we nowhere perceive cognitions not inherent in a cognising subject and not referring to objects. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'perception. And on account of its being unproved in every way. Here now come forward the Madhyamikas who teach that there is nothing but a universal Void.
Absolute knowledge rises above the world of appearance and is altogether true but difficult to express in words. The Yogâcâra makes three divisions, dividing the inferior knowledge into two. The Mâdhyamikas more simply divide knowledge into samvṛiti-satya and paramârtha-satya, that is the truth of every-day life and transcendental truth.
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