Açvaghoṣa argues, in his _Awakening of Faith_ for the indefinability of this first principle. When we say it is çûnya or empty, on account of its being independent {100} of all the thinkable qualities, which we attribute to things relative and conditional, people would take it for the nothingness of absolute void. But when we define it as a real reality, as it stands above the evanescence of phenomena, they would imagine that there is something individual and existing outside the pale of this universe, which, though as concrete as we ourselves are, lives an eternal life. It is like describing to the blind what an elephant looks like; each one of them gets but a very indistinct and imperfect conception of the huge creature, yet every one of them thinks he has a true and most comprehensive idea of it.[42] Açvaghoṣa, thus, wishes to eschew all definite statements concerning the ultimate nature of being, but as language is the only mode with which we mortals can express our ideas and communicate them to others, he thinks the best expression that can be given to it is Bhûtatathâtâ, i.e., “suchness of existence,” or simply, “suchness.” Bhûtatathâtâ (suchness), thus absolutely viewed, does not fall under the category of being and non-being; and minds which are kept within the narrow circle of contrasts, must be said to be incapable of grasping it as it truly is. Says Nâgârjuna in his Çâstra (Ch. XV.): “Between thisness (_svabhâva_) and thatness (_parabhâva_), Between being and non-being, Who discriminates, The truth of Buddhism he perceives not.”[43] {101} Or, “To think ‘it is’, is eternalism, To think ‘it is not’, is nihilism: Being and non-being, The wise cling not to either.”[44] Again, “The dualism of ‘to be’ and ‘not to be,’ The dualism of pure and not-pure: Such dualism having abandoned, The wise stand not even in the middle.”[45] To quote, again, from the _Awakening of Faith_ (pp. 58-59): “In its metaphysical origin, Bhûtatathâtâ has nothing to do with things defiled, i.e., conditional: it is free from all signs of individualisation, such as exist in phenomenal objects: it is independent of an unreal, particularising consciousness.” _Indefinability._ Absolute Suchness from its very nature thus defies all definitions. We cannot even say that it is, for everything that is presupposes that which is not: existence and non-existence are relative terms as much as subject and object, mind and matter, this and that, one and other: one cannot be conceived {102} without the other. “It is not so (_na iti_)[46],” therefore, may be the only way our imperfect human tongue can express it. So the Mahâyânists generally designate absolute Suchness as Çûnyatâ or void.