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HINAYANA AND MAHAYANA "It cannot be called void or not void, or both or neither, but in order to indicate it, it is called The Void," 66 This negative desigpation of the transcendent "highest goal,” in contrast to the positive which predominates in the Vedic tradition, is what gives to the whole complex of doctrine associated with the name and work of Nāgārjuna its peculiar quality and force. The bold consistency with which this manner of speech has been carried through every phasc of thought and feeling, to the very limit, keeps a wonderful, really sublime wind of detachment blowing through all the Mahāyāna discourses.
“A gift should not be given by a Bodhisattva," we read, for example, in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra known as "The DiamondCutter” (Vajracchedikā), "so long as he believes in objects. A gift should not be given by him, so long as he believes in anything. A gift should not be given by him, so long as he believes in form; a gift should not be given by him, so long as he believes in the special qualities of sound, smell, taste, and touch. Because, O Subhūti, a gift should be given by a Bodhisattva only in order that he should not believe even in the idea of cause. And why? Because that Bodhisattva, () Subhūti, who gives a gift without believing in anything, the measure of his stock of merit is not easy to learn." 67
"There is a fundamental reality,” states Dr. Radhakrishnan, in his elucidation of the Madhyamika doctrine of the Void, "without which things would not be what they are. Sūnyatā is a positive principle. Kumārajīva, commenting on Nāgārjuna, observes: 'It is on account of sūnyatā (the Void) that everything becomes possible, without it nothing in the world is possible.' It is the basis of all. 'O Subhūti, all dharmas have šūnyatā for their refuge; they do not alter that refuge' (Prajñāpāramitā).
Bo Jb. 15. 3 (cf. Mülamadhyamakakärikäs de Nāgärjuna, Bibliotheca Buddhica IV, St. Petersburg, 1913, p. 264, 11. 9-10); Radhakrishnan, p. 669.
67 Vajracchedikā 4. (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XLIX, Part II, p. 114).
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