Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Everything that arises does so dependently — nothing has intrinsic nature (svabhāva), emptiness (śūnyatā) is the truth of dependent origination
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Mūlamadhyamakakārikā |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Discrete |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Space · Curvature | Undefined |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Matter · Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Non-local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Total |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Energy · Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Chapter 19 of the MMK is one of the most rigorous analyses of time in classical Indian philosophy. Nāgārjuna shows that past, present, and future cannot be related to each other coherently if any is treated as having intrinsic existence — they exist only in dependent designation. Time is relational, beginningless in saṃsāra (Infinite Extent), and cyclical at the cosmological scale.
Space
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Like time, space is shown in chapter 5 to lack intrinsic nature: the "characteristic" of space (taking up extension) cannot be located either in something that already has the characteristic or in something without it. Space is relational, undefined in any geometric sense intrinsic to it, and non-local — spatial relations exist only as designations.
Matter
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Chapter 1's opening — "Neither from itself nor from another, / Nor from both, / Nor without cause, / Does anything whatever, anywhere arise" — destabilises every classical theory of material causation. Matter is relational, dependently arisen, and (since it has no intrinsic nature) not conserved in any classical sense; it is also non-local, since locality presupposes intrinsic spatial properties.
Observer
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
The Buddhist anatta doctrine is taken to its most rigorous extreme: the self (chapter 18) lacks intrinsic nature, but the conventional person continues as a stream of dependent designations. The arahant's realisation of emptiness is total knowledge (in the precise sense that nothing further about ultimate reality could be known); embodied within saṃsāra; active in the bodhisattva's practice. No personal metaphysical agency.
Energy
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Karmic-energetic processes are real conventionally but empty ultimately. The MMK does not develop an explicit doctrine of energy; what would correspond to one in classical Buddhist terms is the momentum of craving-and-grasping, which is irreversibly dissipated in liberation.
Information
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
No substantival informational structure prior to designation; the patterns of dependent origination are real conventionally and empty ultimately. Personal information is not conserved: there is no self to preserve, and karmic momentum, while real, is extinguishable.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The MMK's most-disputed feature is its own status. If every philosophical position is undermined, what is the status of the doctrine of emptiness itself? Nāgārjuna addresses this directly (chapter 13.7-8; Vigrahavyāvartanī): emptiness is itself empty, and the position that nothing has intrinsic nature does not itself have intrinsic nature — a refusal of meta-level dogmatism that has been praised (Garfield, Westerhoff) and criticised (Burton, parts of the Gelug tradition) ever since. The relation between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra is the other major interpretive locus.