Do Nagarjuna and Shankara Agree or Disagree on the Nature of Reality?
I recently received an objection to my use of the phrase ‘Perennial philosophy’ to encompass both Middle Way Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. It is a very reasonable objection, and here I’d like to address it directly. The reason it is important is that if we see the Perennial philosophy as divided on profound metaphysical issues it becomes implausible. This philosophy arises from direct experience and certain knowledge, so it claims, and the credibility of its methods and teachings would be destroyed if its great masters disagreed on the truth.
Here is my take on the matter. If I have overlooked issues or missed some subtleties please let me know.
The key characters in this story are Nagarjuna and Shankara, the two champions, respectively, of Middle Way Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. Many Advaitins and Buddhists interpret the former’s teachings on emptiness to be inconsistent with the latter’s teachings on Brahman, such that only one of them can be right, while many others argue that they are perfectly consistent. It is a long, ongoing and expert argument. The reason it is ongoing is that there is no way to settle the debate merely by reading their teachings. If there were it would have been settled by now.
If we trust the experts, then, we need not study the issues in any depth in order to form an opinion. All we need to know is that according to expert opinion we are free to see Nagarjuna and Shankara as agreeing or disagreeing. It seems to me disrespectful and damaging to both of them to assume they disagree, but such an interpretation is not ruled out by a close study of their writings.
The point at issue is whether the manifest psycho-physical world is self-sustaining or whether it has an immutable ground from which it arises. Some say that dependent-arising as explained by Nagarjuna encompasses the totality such that there would be no independently existing ground or substrate on which the relative existence of phenomena depends: All that exists would do so in dependence on other dependently existing phenomena. Meanwhile, Shankara teaches that Brahman is ultimate and independent: All else would be dependent on Brahman.
If we approach this issue via analysis and reason then it is an easy one to sort out. The idea that dependent phenomena bootstrap their way into existence in dependence on previously existing dependent phenomena produces an infinite regress of dependent phenomena and no explanation for why any of them exist. If Nagarjuna endorsed this idea then his metaphysics would contradict reason. As this is not a necessary interpretation of Nagarjuna then the philosophical ‘Principle of Charity’ demands that we reject it in favour of something more plausible. What is more plausible is that Nagarjuna is correct to say that all things are dependently arisen, but that the Ultimate is not a thing. It would be real or the ‘Real’, but would not exist in the way conceivable things exist. Ordinary existence entails that an existent ‘stands out’ from its background, but the Ultimate has no background and cannot exist in this way. Thus we can say that nothing really exists or ever really happens, as Nagarjuna does, without contradicting Shankara on the reality of Brahman.
Shankara has been subjected to criticism for his endorsement of Buddhist teachings, which rather suggests that he had no problem with Nagarjuna. Is it really plausible that Shankara would entertain a teaching that denied Brahman? Is it really plausible that such an excellent metaphysician as Nagarjuna would endorse a world-theory that explains existence as an infinite regress of dependent phenomena? Is it really plausible that two great masters could have a profound disagreement on whether existence has an ultimate ground? The experts disagree on these questions so we must judge for ourselves.
When setting out to study mysticism my approach was to assume that whenever I saw what seemed to be a contradiction it was my job to understand how to resolve it. I have never come across any that cannot be resolved, and this perceived dispute between Nagarjuna and Shankara is not an exception. We can see it as a dispute if we wish, but then we will have to assume that one of them was talking nonsense. Why would we do this when it is easy to interpret them as agreeing, and when so many people who study these issues endorse this sympathetic interpretation?
There are many side issues here. For instance, according to Nagarjuna’s Two Truths doctrine it would unrigorous to state that existence does or does-not have a ground, which would explain why disputes between teachers can seem to arise where really it is just a difference in emphasis and the difficulty of avoiding extreme positions when speaking in ordinary subject-predicate language.
This subtlety and others are important and difficult, but in the end I feel the issue is one of common-sense. It seems to me that those who see a dispute between Middle Way Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta cannot have much faith in the effectiveness of self-enquiry as a path to truth and knowledge, and I cannot believe this is helpful to their practice.
The debate evaporates when we assume Shankara and Nagarjuna are not disagreeing about reality, but about whether one may legitimately say anything at all about what remains when all distinctions collapse. Shankara says yes, indirectly. Nagarjuna says no, not even that. The reconciliatory position is to that both answers reflect methodological, not ontological, differences. This allows us to assume that both these great masters spoke with authority and truth, while the fact that this is an assumption and interpretation leaves us free to believe otherwise if we wish. Which of these views is correct cannot be decided by scholarship, only by knowledge, but it seems to me that reconciliatory view is considerably more plausible and a whole lot less troublesome.