Distinguishing the Views

“Distinguishing the Views: Moonlight to Illuminate the Points of the Supreme Path (Lta ba’i shan ‘byed)” — Gorampa Sönam Senge, 1469.

Thesis / main argument

Gorampa’s Distinguishing the Views is a polemical treatise. It argues that the correct interpretation of Madhyamaka is the “Middle Way qua freedom from extremes” (mtha’ bral dbu ma), which Gorampa positions between two erroneous Tibetan readings: Dolpopa’s eternalist zhentong, and Tsongkhapa’s reading, which Gorampa accuses of nihilism. His central claim is that the Madhyamaka negation must apply to all four extremes of the catuṣkoṭi — existence, non-existence, both, neither — without qualification. This is set squarely against Tsongkhapa, who narrows the negation to “true existence” (bden grub) alone. The real ultimate truth (don dam mtshan nyid pa) is ineffable, beyond all conceptual proliferation, and accessible only through yogic gnosis, not through inferential reasoning.

Key claims

• Three Tibetan systems of Madhyamaka: (1) those who advocate eternalism as Madhyamaka (Dolpopa/Jonangpa — zhentong), (2) those who advocate nihilism as Madhyamaka (Tsongkhapa/Geluk), (3) those who advocate freedom from extremes as Madhyamaka (Gorampa’s own Sa skya position).
• Against Dolpopa: The zhentong view is non-Buddhist because it exempts the ultimate (Buddha-nature) from the Madhyamaka negative dialectic. It is incompatible with all four Buddhist philosophical schools and falls outside the Buddhist tradition entirely. Gorampa follows Red mda’ ba’s critique, characterising zhentong as having strong Cittamātra affinities but never reaching the Middle Way.
• Against Tsongkhapa: Tsongkhapa’s grasping at emptiness — as a conceptually apprehended object that is the real ultimate truth — is itself a form of nihilism. By confining negation to “true existence” only, Tsongkhapa renders three of the four koṭis of the catuṣkoṭi pointless and reduces the Madhyamaka critique to a “scholastic epiphenomenon.”
• Two levels of ultimate truth: (a) the quasi-ultimate (rnam grangs pa) — emptiness as the endpoint of rational analysis, which is actually a conventional truth; (b) the real ultimate (don dam mtshan nyid pa) — the ineffable emptiness fathomed only by yogic gnosis, beyond all proliferative dichotomising.
• Rejection of double negation: The negation of existence does not imply the acceptance of non-existence. The yod min med min (“neither existent nor non-existent”) position is the authentic Sa skya mainstream view.
• Against the Hwa shang charge: Gorampa’s view differs from Chinese quietism because it requires thorough rational analysis as a necessary prerequisite — but this analysis must then be transcended through the fourfold negation of the catuṣkoṭi.
• Conventional truth: Gorampa follows Candrakīrti in accepting conventional things “just as they are known in the world, without analysing them” — meaning without analysing them by ultimate-level reasoning, not without using conventional valid cognition.
• The Madhyamaka as basis-path-result: the basis is the union of the two truths; the path is the union of the two accumulations; the result is the union of the two bodies (kāyas).

Structural anchors

The references below follow the sa bcad numbering preserved in Cabezón & Dargyay’s translation of Gorampa’s text proper (1.1–1.3, , 3.1–3.3.5, 4.1–4.3).

Chapter 1 (–1.3) — The Three Systems of Those Who Claim to Be Mādhyamikas. A brief programmatic chapter introducing the threefold taxonomy (eternalism / nihilism / freedom-from-extremes). It lays out, in succession, what Tsongkhapa and Dolpopa each maintain on the ultimate, the conventional, and the five “ancillary points” (two obscurations, two selflessnesses, Mahāyāna/Hīnayāna abandon-and-realise distinction, external objects without ālaya/svasaṃvedana, no autonomous reasons or theses). Chapter 1 is the rhetorical map for chapters 2 and 3, which take each system in turn.

Chapter 2 () — Refutation of Dolpopa. Opens by reproducing Red mda’ ba’s four-step structural reduction of zhentong: it is not the purport of any sūtra (Hīna- or Mahāyāna), is not compatible with any of the four philosophical schools, and is not accepted by any Indian or Tibetan Mahāyānist; therefore it falls outside the Buddhist Dharma. Gorampa then expands each step. The central textual move quotes MMK 13:7 against Dolpopa: “If there were some thing that were not empty, then the empty might exist; but because there is nothing whatsoever that is not empty, how can the empty exist?” — read by Gorampa as showing that to retain a truly existent gzhan stong basis is to reify the very stong gzhi that Nāgārjuna explicitly denies.

The chapter then transmits Rongtonpa’s verdict that zhentong “represents the most refined view of the Cittamātra, falling just short of the Madhyamaka” on four counts: (a) residue of true-grasping at the pariniṣpanna after only the paratantra is negated; (b) acceptance of the Saṃdhinirmocana as definitive; (c) calling Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti “Great Mādhyamikas”; (d) making the three-natures the master hermeneutic. The chapter closes with Drakpa Gyaltsen’s boomerang against the Jonangpas: “you accept that Yogācāras are Mādhyamikas, and you also accept that a buddha’s gnosis is free from all proliferations. But this is internally contradictory.” — Gorampa: “lift this passage to the top of your head [as a sign of respect].”

Chapter 3 (–3.3.5) — Refutation of Tsongkhapa. Five subdivisions:

• ** Examination of the exposition of the ultimate** — the load-bearing chapter for grasping-emptiness-is-itself-a-form-of-nihilism. Two specific charges: (a) treating the med dgag of true existence as the real ultimate, and (b) refusing to negate the conceptual apprehension of that med dgag itself. Gorampa: “to accept that, once one has negated truth, the [resulting] conceptualisation of emptiness… should not [itself] be negated is to err in regard to one of the most important points of the textual tradition of the Madhyamaka.” The Madhyamaka register requires that all four extremes (existence, non-existence, both, neither) be eliminated; narrowing the negation to bden grub makes “three of four koṭis pointless” (). This is backed by extended citations from MMK 7:33, 13:8, 22:11, the Saṃcayagāthā, the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, the Abhisamayālaṅkāra (I.34–35), the Bodhicaryāvatāra (IX.2), and Candrakīrti.

• ** Examination of the exposition of the conventional** — two subdivisions: (3.2.1) the workings of karma (Tsongkhapa’s zhig pa dngos po, “destruction qua real entity”); (3.2.2) eye-consciousnesses of the six classes of beings (the famous “water / pus / molten metal” thought-experiment). Gorampa argues both moves are speculative sgrub byed outside what worldly cognition supports, and so violate the Prāsaṅgika mandate Tsongkhapa himself accepts. Endnotes 222–229 catalogue the surrounding Geluk reply (Sera Jetsun, Lta ngan mun sel 264–74).

• ** Analysis of ancillary points** — five sub-subdivisions: (3.3.1) the two obscurations; (3.3.2) the two selflessnesses; (3.3.3) Mahāyāna/Hīnayāna abandonment-and-realisation differences (the MA 1.8 / 6.4 cluster — śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, dharma-nairātmya); (3.3.4) acceptance of external objects without ālaya or svasaṃvedana; (3.3.5) no autonomous reasons and no theses. .5 itself further divides into 3.3.5.1 (the difference between Prāsaṅgikas and Svātantrikas with respect to theses), 3.3.5.2 (the difference as regards adequate argumentation), 3.3.5.3 (the basis on which the two-truths division is drawn).

Chapter 4 (–4.3) — Gorampa’s own system: the Madhyamaka qua freedom from extremes. Three subdivisions:

• **** identifies the vessel (the student): those who first hold realist tenets and convert (4.1.1) and those who from the outset exert themselves through Mahāyāna lineage (4.1.2).
• **** the basis-path-result triple. .1 Madhyamaka qua basis = union of the two truths: .1.1 conventional (accepted “as it appears to an ordinary worldly mind unaffected by adventitious error” — the “water vs pus vs molten metal” cup is contested directly against Tsongkhapa); .1.2 ultimate, with its critical bipartition — .1.2.1 the quasi-ultimate (rnam grangs pa’i don dam bden pa / don dam pa rjes mthun pa), the freedom-from-the-four-extremes that is the direct object of stepwise rational analysis but is itself, “compared to the stainless equipoise of āryans, only a conventional truth”; and .1.2.2 the real ultimate (don dam mtshan nyid pa), in which the four extremes are eliminated simultaneously (cig char du), the realised reality and the realising mind do not appear as two, and the appellation “ultimate truth” is itself withdrawn. .2 the path = union of method and wisdom; .3 the result = union of the two bodies (kāyas).
• **** trustworthy scriptural sources, in two: .1 distinguishes the two ultimates by name (“ultimate-in-name-only” / “not-in-name-only”); .2 anchors the freedom-from-the-four-extremes in scripture (Aṣṭasāhasrikā, Saṃcaya, Vajracchedikā, Lalitavistara, etc.).

Two further structural data points worth recording. First, the .1.2.1 chapter explicitly enumerates the five great reasonings as the standard Madhyamaka analytic toolkit — vajra slivers, refutation of arising of existent and nonexistent, refutation of arising via the four alternatives, neither-one-nor-many, dependent arising — and notes that “Svātantrikas accept these as autonomous syllogisms, while Prāsaṅgikas accept them as ‘reasons acceptable to others’ (gzhan la grags kyi rtags).” Gorampa thus attests the settled five-reasonings list directly, as a scholastic given with the rang rgyud / gzhan la grags methodological split applied to it; the same list is summarised in Dewar’s later translator’s note at Five Great Reasonings. Second, the .1.2.2 chapter notes that the rnam grangs pa / mtshan nyid pa distinction itself “has its origin in Indian Svātantrika texts” (BPD 381.3.5, n. 386 by the translators) — i.e. Gorampa’s two-level ultimate is Jñānagarbha/Śāntarakṣita-derived terminology, repurposed to a Prāsaṅgika reading.

Methodology

Gorampa’s method is polemical and apophatic: he arrives at his own position by systematically dismantling his opponents’. He draws on Indian Madhyamaka sources (especially Candrakīrti and Nāgārjuna), the Sa skya founding masters (gong ma), and his own teachers (Rongtonpa, Byams chen rab ‘byams pa, Gung ru ba). He uses both scriptural authority (lung) and reasoning (rigs pa), and is alert to the intertextual relationships between Dolpopa’s, Tsongkhapa’s, and his own arguments — noting, for instance, that Tsongkhapa may have borrowed arguments from Dolpopa against the Sa skya pas.

Source and textual apparatus. This edition is translated and introduced by José Ignacio Cabezón (with Geshe Lobsang Dargyay). The page works from the body of the translation of Gorampa’s text proper, anchored to his own sa bcad across the four chapters, supported by Cabezón’s extensive introduction. The Indo-Tibetan apparatus (endnotes 47–700+) cross-references Tsongkhapa’s Lhag mthong and Drang nges legs bshad snying po, the MA and MABh, the Prasannapadā, Bhāviveka, the Pramāṇavārttika, Mkhas grub rje’s Stong thun chen mo, and Sera Jetsun’s Lta ngan mun sel (the principal Geluk reply to Gorampa).

Notable verbatim quotations (≤30 words each, sa bcad-anchored)

• , against Tsongkhapa: “To accept that, once one has negated truth, the conceptualisation of emptiness should not itself be negated is to err on one of the most important points of the Madhyamaka.”
• , on the real ultimate: “The real ultimate truth is the not-seeing of [things] in terms of any of the extremes — existence, nonexistence, eternalism, nihilism — within the stainless equipoised gnosis of āryans.”
• , MMK 13:7 against Dolpopa: “If there were some thing that were not empty, the empty might exist; but because nothing is not empty, how can the empty exist?”
• , Drakpa Gyaltsen’s boomerang against the Jonangpas: “You accept that Yogācāras are Mādhyamikas, and that a Buddha’s gnosis is free from all proliferations. But this is internally contradictory.”

Connections

• Directly critiques: Tsongkhapa (accused of nihilism through grasping at emptiness) and Dolpopa (accused of eternalism through zhentong).
• Draws on: Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra and Prasannapadā; Red mda’ ba’s critique of Jonang; Rongtonpa’s teachings.
• In tension with: westerhoff-nihilist-interpretation-2016. Westerhoff argues a sophisticated nihilism is compatible with Madhyamaka; Gorampa argues that any grasping at emptiness as a conceptual object is itself a form of nihilism. These pull in opposite directions.
• Engages the same concepts as: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (the catuṣkoṭi, the Two Truths) and Madhyamakāvatāra.