Definition
The Five Great Reasonings (Tib. gtan tshigs chen po lnga) are a standard Tibetan scholastic systematisation of the principal analytic arguments used in Madhyamaka to establish emptiness. They are not a single doctrine but a methodological toolkit — five convergent lines of reasoning, each focused on a different aspect of the putative object (cause, result, both, entity, relation), which together are taken to exhaust the ways an inherently existent phenomenon could be conceived. Each reasoning issues in a Non-affirming Negation (prasajyapratiṣedha): the conclusion is that the object analysed lacks inherent nature, not that some positive alternative has been established.
The five reasonings
Each reasoning targets a different aspect of the putative object (cause, result, both, entity, relation), is anchored in a specific root verse, and — in the scholastic deployment — is run as a formal syllogism of the shape take the subject → it follows that it is unreal, because [reason] → like [example]. The arrangement below, with the root verse and source text for each, follows Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s The Seed of Reasoning (rigs pa’i sa bon; jamyang-khyentse-seed-reasoning-2018), the wiki’s one source organised entirely around the five. Per his framing, the first four overcome the extreme of reification (སྒྲོ་འདོགས་, superimposing existence) and the fifth overcomes the extreme of denial (སྐུར་པ་འདེབས་པ་, deprecating phenomena as non-existent).
1. Investigation of the cause — the Vajra Slivers
rdo rje gzegs ma; Skt. vajrakaṇa. Analyses causes; synonymous with the refutation of arising from the four extremes (from self, from other, from both, causelessly).
Root verse — Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.1:
Not from itself, not from another, / Not from both, nor without a cause — / Does anything anywhere ever arise.
Syllogism (Jamyang Khyentse): take whatever currently appears as the subject; it follows that it is unreal, because ultimately it arises in none of the four ways — and is therefore like a dream. The four sub-refutations: from itself is incoherent (what is produced must differ from its producer; an already-existent thing needs no producing; and it would entail infinite regress); from another is incoherent (if a cause of one nature could yield an effect of wholly unrelated nature, a lamp could produce darkness, and anything could produce anything); from both merely inherits all the preceding faults; causelessly has absurd consequences (a lotus garden could grow from empty space, and the worldly practice of planting seeds for crops would be rendered pointless).
Developed at length by Candrakīrti in the Prasannapadā on MMK 1.1 — against Sāṃkhya self-production and against Bhāviveka’s autonomous reformulation (candrakirti-prasannapada-mmk1-excerpt).
2. Investigation of the result — refuting existent and non-existent effects
yod med skye ‘gog. Analyses results: whether a result (e.g. a sprout “arisen” from a seed) was already present at the time of its cause, or absent, or both, or neither.
Root verse — Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.6:
Whether for existent or non-existent things, / A contributive condition would be invalid.
(The verse continues: a condition could accomplish nothing for what already exists, and could not be a condition for what does not exist.)
Syllogism (Jamyang Khyentse): take the various apparent entities as the subject; it follows that they are unreal, because they are produced as neither existent nor non-existent. A vase that arises while existing would have a pointless production (it already exists); a vase that arises while not existing would be the existent emerging from the non-existent — an incompatibility of substance that cannot obtain.
3. Investigation of both — refuting the four permutations of arising
mu bzhi skye ‘gog. Analyses causes and results together: inherent production would have to take one of four forms — one→one, one→many, many→one, many→many — none of which obtains.
Root verse — Jñānagarbha, Satyadvayavibhaṅga (“Distinguishing the Two Truths”) v. 14:
Several things do not produce a single thing, / And many things do not create a multiplicity. / A single thing does not produce many things. / And from one thing, a single thing is not produced.
Syllogism (Jamyang Khyentse): take mere appearances as the subject; it follows that they are unreal, because ultimately none of the four modes of arising occurs — comparable to applying the label “space” to a mere absence of things. The attribution to Jñānagarbha is the wiki’s only textual locus for this reasoning, anchoring the four-permutation analysis in the eighth-century Svātantrika (Jñānagarbha–Śāntarakṣita) literature rather than in the MMK itself.
4. Investigation of the essential identity — neither one nor many
gcig du bral; Skt. ekānekaviyoga. Analyses the entity of phenomena: a truly existent phenomenon must be either singular or plural; plurality reduces to a collection of irreducible singulars; no phenomenon yields an irreducible single unit under mental or physical dismantling. The load-bearing reasoning of Śāntarakṣita’s line and the distinctive tool of the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka school.
Root verse — Śāntarakṣita, Madhyamakālaṅkāra v. 1:
Since they lack a true identity as singular or multiple, / Things are without inherent nature.
Syllogism (Jamyang Khyentse): take apparent objects as the subject; they can be established as neither real nor unreal, because they are beyond singularity and multiplicity — like the moon’s reflection in water. Any claim requiring true inherent singularity is unreasonable; and since oneness cannot be established, multiplicity, which relies upon it, cannot be established either. See shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara for the full development with Mipham’s commentary.
5. Great Interdependence
rten ‘brel; Skt. pratītyasamutpāda. Analyses all phenomena via relation. The “king of reasonings” (gtan tshigs kyi rgyal po): unlike the first four, which refute the extreme of existence, it also secures the conventional against the extreme of non-existence — the dependently-arisen phenomenon appears and functions even while lacking inherent nature. (Jamyang Khyentse’s framing assigns the existence-extreme to the first four collectively and the non-existence-extreme to this reasoning specifically; see Interpretations for how this relates to the more common “refutes both extremes” rationale.)
Root verse — Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 24.18:
Whatever originates in interdependence / Is explained to be emptiness, / Which is a dependent imputation. / This is the path of the middle way.
Syllogism (Jamyang Khyentse): take mere appearances as the subject; they are unreal, because they are interdependent — like a reflection. His illustration: a magician’s horses and oxen, conjured from sticks and mantras, appear without any actual horse or ox being present; likewise all things, “from mountains to ordinary men and women,” are nothing more than accumulations of atoms and are momentary by nature, hence empty of substance while appearing unceasingly — “the unity of appearance and emptiness.” He reinforces the verse with the Anavataptanāgarājaparipṛcchā Sūtra (Questions of the Nāga King Anavatapta): “Whatever arises due to conditions does not truly arise … Whatever depends on conditions is empty” — a sūtra warrant placing the king-reasoning within the definitive-meaning corpus.
Scope of the list
The “five” grouping is a Tibetan scholastic convention, not a list explicitly closed in any single Indian source. The reasonings are all present in the Indian Madhyamaka corpus — Nāgārjuna’s MMK uses the vajra slivers (ch. 1), result-permutation and four-permutation analyses (chs. 1, 20, 7), interdependence (ch. 24), and the ekānekaviyoga is developed at length by Śāntarakṣita. Different Tibetan authors vary the list: some substitute the “reasoning investigating the nature” or add further arguments (e.g. the diamond-scalpel analysis of the self). The enumeration under which these five are grouped together as a canonical set becomes standard from roughly the eleventh-twelfth century onward.
Further attestation and deployment
Beyond the per-reasoning root verses above, the toolkit is attested as a settled set and deployed across the literature:
- Atiśa, Madhyama-upadeśa — “when the appearances of relative phenomena themselves have been investigated and disproved by the great reasonings, there is not even one hundredth of a hair’s breadth of anything to hold on to” (atisha-key-instructions). The idiom “the great reasonings” is presupposed as already known to the reader — one of the earliest attestations of the grouping as a settled toolkit.
- Ninth Karmapa, Feast for the Fortunate — the five function as the implicit analytic backbone of the three stages of analysis (karmapa-feast-fortunate-1578); Dewar’s translator’s summary appears as Appendix III.
- Tsongkhapa, Illuminating the Intent — all five appear distributed across the Madhyamakāvatāra commentary, especially chs. 6 and 9 (tsongkhapa-illuminating-intent-1418).
- Śāntideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra 9.116–150, with Khenpo Kunzang Pelden’s commentary (kunzang-pelden-nectar-manjushri-2007, following Mipham’s Norbu Ketaka) — a clean Indian-primary-text deployment of the reasonings explicitly mapped to the three doors of liberation: the analysis of cause (the diamond-slivers, vv. 116–142: against Cārvāka causelessness, against the permanent cause of Īśvara and the Mīmāṃsaka particle, against the Sāṃkhya satkārya doctrine) yields signlessness; the analysis of nature (the great-interdependence argument, vv. 143–144) yields emptiness; the analysis of result (the existent/non-existent-effect argument, vv. 145–150) yields wishlessness (“beyond expectancy”). Confirms the “convergent toolkit subordinated to a soteriological end” reading from the BCA-9 / Nyingma side.
Interpretations
As a convergent toolkit (majority Tibetan view: Tsongkhapa, Ninth Karmapa, Mipham, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo in jamyang-khyentse-seed-reasoning-2018, Dewar’s implicit framing in karmapa-feast-fortunate-1578): the five reasonings are not alternatives but complements. Each targets a different aspect of the putative object, and any of them is sufficient on its own to establish emptiness for that aspect; the combined application covers all aspects. Different reasonings are suited to different audiences and contemplative temperaments. Jamyang Khyentse states the strong form of this view explicitly: since “there is no phenomenon whatsoever with any real nature, there is nothing to be refuted,” the reasonings are triggered only when an opponent superimposes true existence, and then “any of the reasonings outlined above would be sufficient to pulverize the assertion” — convergence plus individual sufficiency, with the toolkit subordinated to the No-thesis stance.
As a pedagogical sequence (Atiśa and the contemplative lineage, as presented in apple-jewels-middle-way-2018 and atisha-key-instructions): the reasonings are deployed in sequence in meditation — first on physical phenomena (particle-analysis, a form of “beyond one or many”), then on non-physical phenomena (mind-analysis, combining “beyond one or many” with interdependence) — and then the analysing prajñā itself dissolves like fire that has consumed its sticks. Here the toolkit is instrumentalised contemplatively rather than scholastically.
As prasaṅga vs. svatantra deployment (Prāsaṅgika-Svātantrika distinction): a recurring question in Tibetan scholasticism is whether the reasonings should be run as autonomous probative arguments (svatantra-anumāna, Bhāviveka / Śāntarakṣita / Kamalaśīla tradition) or as consequences ad hominem on the opponent’s own commitments (prasaṅga, Buddhapālita / Candrakīrti tradition). Mipham argues that both deployments are legitimate at different pedagogical stages; Tsongkhapa privileges the prasaṅga deployment while retaining the formal structure. The Ninth Karmapa treats the distinction as methodological rather than substantive — the same reasonings, different applications. Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s Seed of Reasoning (jamyang-khyentse-seed-reasoning-2018) is a quiet illustration of Mipham’s point: a Rimé master in the Mipham orbit presents all five in the autonomous-syllogism (svatantra) format — each as “Take [the subject]; it follows that it is unreal, because … , like a dream/reflection” (thesis–reason–example) — without polemic about the prasaṅga/svatantra divide. The ekānekaviyoga he gives is the Śāntarakṣita reasoning, and he runs the whole toolkit probatively; this is consistent with sp-hierarchy-is-tibetan-construction.
The two-extremes division of labour (Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, jamyang-khyentse-seed-reasoning-2018): the first four reasonings overcome the extreme of reification (སྒྲོ་འདོགས་, superimposing existence), and the fifth — interdependence — overcomes the extreme of denial (སྐུར་པ་འདེབས་པ་, deprecating phenomena as non-existent). This is a standard and clean Tibetan formulation, but note it differs in framing from the more common rationale (above, and in the enumeration) on which interdependence is the king of reasonings precisely because it alone refutes both extremes. The two statements are reconcilable — interdependence is the only reasoning that positively secures conventional appearance against nihilism — but a reader should not treat “interdependence refutes the non-existence extreme” (Jamyang Khyentse) and “interdependence refutes both extremes” (the king-of-reasonings rationale) as interchangeable.
“Interdependence” as king of reasonings: interpretations differ on why interdependence is privileged. For Tsongkhapa (via jinpa-tsongkhapa-qualms-1999), because it alone simultaneously refutes both nihilism and essentialism — pratītyasamutpāda is positive content (dependent arising) even as it negates inherent existence; emptiness and dependent arising are mutually entailing. For Gorampa, because it comes closest to the don dam mtshan nyid pa (real ultimate) by refusing any conceptual residue. For Atiśa, because it renders the analysing prajñā itself dependently arisen and hence self-dissolving.
Provenance
This page synthesises across several sources:
- Dedicated treatise on the five: jamyang-khyentse-seed-reasoning-2018 — Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s The Seed of Reasoning (rigs pa’i sa bon), a short nineteenth-century Rimé zin bris organised entirely around these five, in standard order, each as a debate-syllogism. The only wiki source about the five-as-a-set; supplies the Jñānagarbha Satyadvayavibhaṅga and Anavatapta-sūtra loci and the two-extremes division of labour. Brief and pedagogical rather than argumentative.
- Primary enumeration (reference synthesis): Tyler Dewar’s translator’s summary (Appendix III of karmapa-feast-fortunate-1578), pp. 23–24 of the extract. Not a primary source in its own right but a useful translator’s reference synthesis.
- Indian roots: candrakirti-prasannapada-mmk1-excerpt (vajra slivers); shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara (neither one nor many); atisha-key-instructions (implicit appeal to “the great reasonings” as established idiom).
- Tibetan deployments: tsongkhapa-illuminating-intent-1418, karmapa-feast-fortunate-1578, gorampa-distinguishing-views-1469 — none of which devote a dedicated treatise to “the five” as such, but all of which deploy them in commentary.
A scholarly study of the Tibetan gtan tshigs chen po lnga as a scholastic category (e.g. Hugon, van der Kuijp on Tibetan logic) is still not in the wiki; the Jamyang Khyentse text is a traditional witness to the set, not a critical-historical account of how the grouping was fixed, and such a study would still be a useful future addition.