In this article, the author examines the content and implications of the "emptiness-being debate" in Indian Buddhist history through a discussion of relevant original sources and an analysis of the doctrines they present. Especial attention is paid to Bhavaviveka's critique of the concept of the "three natures" of the Yogacarins as revealed in the Tibetan and subsequent Englishand Japanese translations of the twenty-fifth chapter of his Prajnapradipa.
First, of particular note in Bhavaviveka's critique of the "three natures" is that he was the first to criticize the Yogacarin concept of "mere names that do not refer to their objects" inherent in "imagined nature" through the "language" of "designation" and the "object" of "that which is designated through the use of language". Second, it is important to note that Bhavaviveka made full use of the principles of "the threefold logical argument", as developed in Buddhist logic. With these tools and from the perspective of the notions that "dependent nature arises at the mundane level" and the "unattainability of suchness", Bhavaviveka criticized the Yogacarin existential assertion that by the "nothing without reason" principle, "dependent nature must exist", as well as their claim for the "comprehensibility of absolute nature".
Bhavaviveka's critique of the Yogacarin theory of "three natures" carries the three following implications: (1) As regards the relationship between "language" and "reality", he propounds the theory that "all phenomena exist through establishment by their own identity" at the level of conventional truth; (2) In the history of Indian Buddhism, he presages the re-evaluation of Madyamaka in consideration of Yogacara; (3) In regard to the "two truth theory", he reconstructs the relationship between the two truths, placing mundane knowledge in its proper location.
