Beginning at least in the early sixth century in India, a fascinating controversy arose over what is established by Nāgārjuna’s refutation of production in the first chapter of his Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Called “Wisdom”. It is likely that Buddhapālita (c. 470-540?) stimulated this controversy by indicating that this stanza demonstrates “how this called ‘production’ is only a convention,” suggesting that something positive is also established by this series of negations. Bhāvaviveka (c. 500-570?) responded by emphasizing that in Nāgārjuna’s system these reasonings establish a mere absence. In defense of Buddhapālita, Chandrakīrti (seventh century) responded that indeed Buddhapālita “wished to express a nonaffirming negation,” thereby agreeing with Bhāvaviveka that Nāgārjuna intended only a nonaffirming negation. Much later in Tibet the tradition stemming from Tsong-kha-pa (tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa, 1357-1419) put particular emphasis on this controversy in order to detail how, according to it, proper meditation on emptiness requires that the object of meditation be a mere negation, a mere absence of inherent existence. This position stands in marked contrast to many other Tibetan traditions, including that of Tsong-kha-pa’s predecessor Döl-po-pa Shayrap-gyel-tsen (1292-1361) for whom ultimate reality is an affirming negation (ma yin dgag, paryudāsaprati?edha).
