All phenomena both being and non-being are illusory (_sadasanta@h mâyopamâ@h_). When we look deeply into them we find that there is an absolute negation of all appearances, including even all negations, for they are also appearances. This would make the ultimate truth positive. But this is not so, for it is that in which the positive and negative are one and the same (_bhâvâbhâvasamânatâ_) [Footnote ref 1]. Such a state which is complete in itself and has no name and no substance had been described in the La@nkâvatârasûtra as thatness (_tathatâ_) [Footnote ref 2]. This state is also described in another place in the _La@nkâvatâra_ as voidness (_s'ûnyatâ_) which is one and has no origination and no essence [Footnote ref 3]. In another place it is also designated as tathâgatagarbha [Footnote ref 4]. It may be supposed that this doctrine of an unqualified ultimate truth comes near to the Vedantic âtman or Brahman like the tathatâ doctrine of As'vagho@sa; and we find in La@nkavatâra that Râva@na asks the Buddha "How can you say that your doctrine of tathâgatagarbha was not the same as the âtman doctrine of the other schools of philosophers, for those heretics also consider the âtman as eternal, agent, unqualified, all pervading and unchanged?" To this the Buddha is found to reply thus--"Our doctrine is not the same as the doctrine of those heretics; it is in consideration of the fact that the instruction of a philosophy which considered that there was no soul or substance in anything (nairatmya) would frighten the disciples, that I say that all things are in reality the tathâgatagarbha. This should not be regarded as âtman. Just as a lump of clay is made into various shapes, so it is the non-essential nature of all phenomena and their freedom from all characteristics (_sarvavikalpalak@sa@navinivrttam_) that is variously described as the garbha or the nairâtmya (essencelessness). This explanation of tathâgatagarbha as the ultimate truth and reality is given in order to attract to our creed those heretics who are superstitiously inclined to believe in the âtman doctrine [Footnote ref 5]." So far as the appearance of the phenomena was concerned, the idealistic Buddhists (_vijñânavâdins_) agreed to the doctrine of pratîtyasamutpâda with certain modifications. There was with them an external pratîtyasamutpâda just as it appeared in the __________________________________________________________________ [Footnote 1: Asa@nga's _Mahâyânasûtrâla@mkâra_, p. 65.] [Footnote 2: _Lankâvatârasûtra_, p. 70.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid._ p. 78.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid._ p. 80.] [Footnote 5: _Ibid._ pp. 80-81.] 148