Candrakīrti's Introduction to the Middle Way: A Guide

“Candrakīrti’s Introduction to the Middle Way: A Guide” — Westerhoff, Jan, 2024.

Thesis / main argument

Westerhoff’s 2024 OUP volume is a verse-by-verse philosophical guide to Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra aimed at an analytic-philosophical readership without prior Buddhist Studies training. It is not a fresh translation but a “guide” to be read alongside Siderits/Katsura’s translation of chapter 6 and Jinpa’s translation of Tsongkhapa’s commentary. Westerhoff’s interpretive thesis is continuous with westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009: Candrakīrti’s Madhyamaka is a coherent, defensible metaphysical anti-realism — the rejection of intrinsic nature (རང་བཞིན་) at both truths — whose internal structure (Two Truths, the prasaṅga-only method, the no-thesis stance, conventional truth as transactional consensus) hangs together once one stops looking for a foundational rock-bottom layer of reality.

Compared to the 2009 monograph the lens shifts: Westerhoff foregrounds Candrakīrti’s constructive commitments (the structure of conventional truth, the cognitive shift that emptiness brings about, the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka boundary) rather than the analytic deconstruction of svabhāva. The book also functions as a tour through the Tibetan reception, with Tsongkhapa, Gorampa, the Eighth and Ninth Karmapas, Mipham, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Dzogchen Pönlop, and Dzongsar Khyentse all cited at relevant junctures.

Key claims

On the Buddhapālita–Bhāviveka–Candrakīrti debate (Introduction )

• The methodological dispute morphs into a substantive one about what Madhyamaka is saying (pp. 6–7). Bhāviveka’s autonomous-syllogism approach commits the Mādhyamika to a set of theses that constitute the school’s position; Candrakīrti’s prasaṅga-only approach reflects the view that Madhyamaka offers “an alternative to views of reality” rather than an alternative view (citing McGuire 2015: 68, p. 6 n. 17). Useful gloss for –3.3.
• Candrakīrti’s two-pronged critique of Bhāviveka: (i) shared subject-matter is impossible because the Mādhyamika cannot postulate any ultimately real entity for both parties to discuss; (ii) inferential conclusions are theses the Mādhyamika cannot consistently defend (pp. 8–9). Compatible with candrakirti-prasannapada-mmk1-excerpt.
• The Madhyamaka–Yogācāra debate (via the Candrakīrti–Candragomin hagiography) is “less an intellectual competition with one victorious and one defeated party, and more a tool for generating a deeper understanding of the Buddha’s teachings” (pp. 16–17). Avalokiteśvara helps Candragomin and Mañjuśrī helps Candrakīrti — the framing presupposes both schools are framework-internal.

On Candrakīrti’s late-period Indian reception (Introduction )

• The Vose 2009 thesis that Candrakīrti was “largely ignored in his day and for some three hundred years” is contested (p. 19). Westerhoff sides with MacDonald 2015 against Vose: Indian-climate manuscript decay rules out a “gathering dust on a shelf” rediscovery story; Śāntideva, Avalokitavrata, Prajñākaramati, and Ratnākaraśānti all engage Candrakīrti.
• From Pa tshab Nyi ma grags onward “all Tibetan interpretations of Madhyamaka positioned themselves in relation to Candrakīrti” (p. 21). Pa tshab’s translation of the Prasannapadā was instrumental in sharpening the Tibetan Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika distinction.

Phya pa’s six questions (Introduction b, pp. 22–24)

The clash between Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge (1109–1169) and Jayānanda is reduced to six questions that Candrakīrti was taken to answer negatively:

1. Can the Indian-logic toolkit be used for emptiness, or only prasaṅga?
2. Do Mādhyamikas hold a positive thesis?
3. Can the unenlightened mind be an epistemic instrument (admitting Diṅnāga–Dharmakīrti epistemology)?
4. Is the ultimate accessible to language and thought?
5. Do conventional truths have philosophical grounding, or only everyday-practice grounding?
6. Does a Buddha have any cognitive events at all?

Tsongkhapa’s response to these worries was not Phya pa’s (reject Candrakīrti) but a constructive synthesis: he kept Candrakīrti’s Madhyamaka while folding in the Diṅnāga–Dharmakīrti epistemology side-by-side, despite “substantial criticism within the Tibetan scholastic tradition” (p. 23, citing Jinpa 2019 and The Yakherds 2022). This six-point list is a third independently derived enumeration of the criteria at stake in the Tibetan Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika debate, comparable to but historically prior to Ruegg’s and Dzongsar Khyentse’s six.

On the Two Truths (Commentary on MA 6:23–6:032)

• Two truths: ontological or epistemological? Westerhoff treats this as Candrakīrti leaving the question open and points readers to Jinpa 2021: 223 and Thakchoe 2004 for further discussion (p. 77).
• Conventional truth vs conventional falsity (MA 6:024): both lie within saṃvṛti, distinguished by whether the cognising faculty is internally impaired (double vision) or externally impaired (mirage, magician, hallucinogen). Mistaken philosophical views are themselves a form of external impairment (p. 77).
• Conventionally-true philosophical positions exist (Madhyamaka itself), but conviction about them does not eliminate the underlying conceptualising mechanisms; that requires meditation as well as argument (p. 78).
• The “fire screen” image of conventional truth (MA 6:028 commentary, p. 79): conventional truth is a decorative screen in front of an open fireplace; the figures on the screen (Dido and Aeneas) are the fabricated entities, true statements about them are conventional truths, and the whole arrangement is “constructed not to reveal something … but to conceal” — namely the empty cavity. A vivid pedagogical image for the conventional/ultimate relation.
• Semantic insulation (MA 6:031, p. 81 with n. 62): conventional statements cannot refute ultimate statements, but conventional statements can refute mistaken conventional renderings of ultimate statements. (E.g., “cars don’t really exist therefore I can steal yours” is rebutted at the conventional level via legal codes, not via Madhyamaka analysis.) Citing Siderits’s “semantic insulation.”
• Negation at both truths, not just the ultimate (MA 6:032 commentary, p. 82): Candrakīrti rejects the four kinds of substantial production at both levels. The qualification is svalakṣaṇa-production, not the everyday “mere conditionality” framework. This is the Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika fault line.

On the appearance/reality misconstrual of the Two Truths (MA 6:035, p. 84)

Westerhoff explicitly warns against reading the Two Truths as an appearance/reality divide where ultimate reality is “discovered behind the conventional reality obscuring it.” There is no “ontologically free-standing rock-bottom layer of reality (fundamental particles, mathematical structures, foundational consciousness)” to be discovered. The analysis Candrakīrti proscribes is ultimate-ground analysis, not the conventional-level analysis of orbital mechanics or biological inheritance (p. 84 with n. 71 citing Tillemans 2013). This warning hits the same target as the subjective-side Two Truths thesis attributed to Dzongsar Khyentse in dzongsar-khyentse-madhyamakavatara-2003, from a different direction.

On Yogācāra and the two truths (MA 6:079–6:083, pp. 110–112)

• Without a proper understanding of the two truths there can be no progress along the Buddhist path (p. 110). The two truths “specify, in terms of the ultimate truth, the aim to be attained, and in terms of the conventional truth the means employed in order to reach this aim.” This is essentially the framework-necessity claim of paper .
• The Mādhyamika “does not accept conventionally real entities that could also be established by an enlightened mind” (p. 110). This is Westerhoff’s gloss on what differentiates Prāsaṅgika conventionalism from Yogācāra-style “reformed” conventional truth.
• Conventional truth is purely transactional / pragmatic: “Those truths which are pragmatically successful within this framework constitute conventional truth. When referring to conventional truth the Mādhyamika does not accept ordinary beings’ view of the world because it would in some way correspond to the way the world is, but simply as a tool to communicate with these beings” (p. 112). Note: Tenpa would add that this is closer to the Tsongkhapa/Geluk reading than to the Gorampa/Sakya reading; the latter would resist treating conventional truth as fully secular-pragmatic. (Author’s evident Geluk lens — see the wiki author’s notes below.)

On the alleged self-refutation of Madhyamaka (MA 6:171–6:178, pp. 167–174)

The opponent argues that if Madhyamaka has refuted contiguous and non-contiguous causation, the Mādhyamika’s own arguments — which must be either contiguous or non-contiguous with what they refute — are equally undermined; the position is therefore self-refuting. Candrakīrti’s response: the contiguity question only has traction for entities deemed ultimately real; the Mādhyamika’s arguments have no intrinsic nature, so the dilemma does not apply to them. Westerhoff makes the structural point clearly (pp. 168–169): Madhyamaka does not drop logical relations and conventional argumentative practice when it drops intrinsic natures; “the Mādhyamika does not drop the causal relations, but the intrinsic natures” (p. 168). The “no thesis” position is qualified accordingly: Candrakīrti has no thesis “that entails the existence of anything with intrinsic natures” (p. 169 n. 151, citing Westerhoff 2010: 61–65). Useful for against Burton-style coherence objections.

On the sixteen and four kinds of emptiness (MA 6:179–6:223)

Westerhoff treats the sixteenfold and fourfold enumerations as ontologically exhaustive in different idioms (pp. 15–16). His commentary on the emptiness of the middle (MA 6:193, p. 181) is unusually crisp: “the final position Buddhist philosophical inquiry arrives at cannot be considered as an ultimate truth expressing the nature of things as they are in themselves.” All philosophical positions — including the middle position itself — are conceptualisation-dependent. He flags Tsongkhapa’s complaint that Yogācāra makes its own “middle” view ultimately true (p. 181, citing Jinpa 2021: 498). For this wiki this is a clean primary-text statement of the framework-internal anti-foundationalism that supports .

Methodology

Verse-by-verse philosophical commentary aimed at students “without much previous acquaintance with Buddhist Philosophy” (p. 24). Focuses on root verses, treating the autocommentary (Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya) as supporting context only when it bears on argument structure. Dense engagement with secondary literature (MacDonald 2015, Jinpa 2021, The Yakherds 2021/2022, Siderits, Thakchoe, Tauscher, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Dzogchen Pönlop, Dzongsar Khyentse). Sanskrit and Tibetan equivalents only where they help readers navigate the secondary literature.

Notable quotes

“Madhyamaka does not offer an alternative view of reality, but an alternative to views of reality.” (p. 6 n. 17, citing McGuire 2015: 68)

Connections

• Continuous with: westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009 (philosophical architecture is essentially the same; the cognitive dimension of svabhāva, anti-foundationalism, semantic insulation between truths). The 2024 book is the application of the 2009 framework to a specific text.
• Departs from: westerhoff-nihilist-interpretation-2016 in tone — the 2024 guide does not push the nihilism line and stays closer to a “constructive antirealism” reading of Candrakīrti. Whether this is a substantive change or a pedagogical choice (Westerhoff is writing a student guide, not a research article) is unclear.
• Engages: Tsongkhapa heavily via Jinpa 2021; Gorampa secondarily via Stöter-Tillmann/Tashi Tsering 2005; Eighth Karmapa via Goldfield et al. 2005; Ninth Karmapa via Dewar 2008; Mipham via Padmakara 2004; Dzongsar Khyentse via Trisoglio 2000 (note: not the 2003 published edition Tenpa has added).
• Takes a position against: Vose 2009’s “Candrakīrti was lost for 300 years” thesis (sides with MacDonald 2015 instead, p. 19).
• Independent convergence with: Ruegg’s six-criterion analysis (ruegg-svat-pras-2006) and DKR’s six criteria (dzongsar-khyentse-madhyamakavatara-2003) on Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika — Westerhoff’s revival of Phya pa’s six questions adds a historical third layer to the convergence.
• Compatible with: framework-absence-yields-nihilism — Westerhoff’s whole guide exhibits framework-engagement producing coherence; he makes the same kind of moves Burton refuses to make.
• Compatible with: framework-internal-debate-is-productive — Phya pa, Tsongkhapa, the Yakherds, Gorampa all appear as framework-internal interlocutors who advance the philosophical analysis through disagreement.