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Many of the objections raised against Nagarjuna’s so called defence of scepticism rests on misunderstanding of such key concepts as bhava, svabhava, sunya, sat (being), asat (non-being). The second sutra of SSK suggests that many of our ideas related to emptiness are conventional in character and not to be taken in an absolute sense, Nagarjuna also indicates the relativity and inadequacy of such linguistic designation as 'self (atman), 'non-self (anatma) and 'self-non-self (atmandimari). These designata, like 'nirvana , because of their emptiness (svabhdva-sunyta), are linguistically inexpressible.

All things, taken together, arc said to be without substance (svahhava-sunyata), causally or conditionally, or totally or separately, and 'therefore', says Nagarjuna, 'they are empty (sunya)', The points to be noted here are two. First, here svabhdva-sunyata 'stands for' insubstantiality. Secondly, intriguing is the use of the word, 'therefore'. Are we to understand that emptiness (sunya) is due to lack of substance? Moreover, to be noted is the inexpressibility of all 'expressible things' (abhidheyabhava).

But from these views of Nagarjuna one must not think that he is a nihilist in the received sense of the term about being (sat). He 'says' it exists. But the same cannot be said of non-being (asat) or being-and-non-being. Consequently, though non-being and being-and-non-being do not endure or vanish, being does exist. In fact it seems from Nagarjuna's line of argument in SSK that he is more interested in expounding the view of dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) and the resulting indeterminable character of things. But nothing that Nagarjuna says in this work, should be taken to suggest that being does not exist. True, he says that it 'does not arise’. But the point to be noted is what is sat can exist without being due to something else or without being productive of something else. Therefore, one might conclude that the main thrust of Nagarjuna's argument is to indicate the inexpressibility and in determinability of things. And this follows from the very basic Buddhist thesis of the momentariness or the madhyama character of what exists.

To the objection that if things (bhava) were empty (sunya),cessation (nirodha) and origination (utpada) cannot occur. Nagarjuna's response is: being (bhava) and non-being (abhava) are successive and relative to each other but not simultaneous. Truly speaking, being (bhava) must not be accepted. If bhava as sat were there, we would be sure of permanence; if non-being (asat) were there, we would always have witnessed annihilation or extinction. But as a matter of fact we do not witness either permanence or perceptual annihilation. From these considerations Nagarjuna concludes that there is being one non-being.⁴ Again he reminds us that true being (sadbhava) cannot vanish or go out of existence. About nirvana it is said that it is neither bhava nor abhava, neither due to destruction nor permanence (sdsvata). In effect Nagarjuna discounts that is conditional (samskrta)—origination (utpada), du­ration (sthiti) and cessation (bhanga). By discounting all these samskrtalaksana, however, he is not committing himself to the existence of the samskrta, phenomenon.

From this dialectic of Nagarjuna a discerning person is not at all thrown into a slate of despair. On the contrary, he realizes that inexpressible character of what is truly there. A similar conclusion becomes inescapable when one carefully goes through Nagarjuna's views on the nature of karma (action) and karaka (agent). In a sense both karma and karaka are sunya orphantom (nirmitaka). Therefore, all talks of karmaphala (results of action), enjoyment and suffering are idle from the ultimate point of view. Also seem pointless the talks of citra, the manifold world, and its forms (rupa).

Though by his dialectic Nagarjuna tries to deny an ultimate or durable ontological status to the empirical world and the human agent, his actions and results thereof, that does not prevent Nagarjuna from explaining how karma (action) is caused by passion and how the human form itself is the result of karma.

Also his accounts of colour-perception and sense-fields give one the distinct impression that he is not at all oblivious of the commonsense world we talk of. It is equally significant to note that Nagarjuna speaks of maya in the context of karma-formations. Simply because our acts of consciousness are episodic and not proposition (in the modern sense), we cannot say that it is not on account of consciousness at all.

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