The Opposite of Emptiness in the Middle Way Autonomy School

This book provides an analyzed translation of part of Jam-yang-shay-pa’s Decisive Analysis of the Middle, also called Great Exposition of the Middle, which came to be the normative textbook for the study of Chandrakîrti’s Middle Way treatise in the Go-mang College of Dre-pung Monastery. Translated here is the section on what is negated in the doctrine of emptiness in general in the Middle Way School and in the Autonomy School in particular. Tsong-kha-pa Lo-sang-drag-pa, the founder of the Ge-lug tradition, emphasized what is rejected in the view of emptiness since without clearly identifying what veils realization of emptiness one cannot achieve liberation.
This book provides the first translation of this section of Jam-yang-shay-pa’s Decisive Analysis of (Chandrakîrti’s) “Supplement to (Nâgârjuna’s) ‘Treatise on the Middle’”: Treasury of Scripture and Reasoning, Thoroughly Illuminating the Profound Meaning [of Emptiness], Entrance for the Fortunate, with Tibetan text interspersed. It is divided into two parts. The initial part:
• justifies the necessity of identifying the object of negation • introduces the two different ways of discerning the two types of objects of negation • provides the criteria and subdivisions of the objects to be ne- gated by correct reasonings • clarifies easily confused logical terms. The second part concerns the exaggerated status of phenomena that is negated in the Middle Way Autonomy School. Jam-yang-shay- pa’s presentation centers on how Tsong-kha-pa creatively expands on a statement in Kamalashîla’s Illumination of the Middle so it clearly identifies true existence or ultimate existence in terms of the innate apprehension of true existence as the central object of negation. Tsong-kha-pa does this through finding a supposedly clear exposition in Kamalashīla’s text of conventional existence and then drawing out its counterpart, ultimate existence.