The present paper mainly discusses concepts regarding the establishment of the San-lun School, its lineage, and the idea of emptiness developed within the tradition. The San-lun School basically carried on the philosophical thought of the Indian Mahaayaana Middle View School wherefore medieval scholars regarded the founder of the Maadhyamika School, Naagaarjuna, also as the first patriarch of the San-lun School. With AAryadeva, Indian Maadhyamika split into two sects, one following Raahula, the other Naagamitra. Among the famous doctors of the latter one were Buddhapaalita, Bhavya and Candrakiirti.`Saantirak.sita transmitted Bhavya's lineage of the Mahaayana School of Emptiness to Tibet. The philosophy of the Mahaayana School of Emptiness spread and developed further, until Kumaarajaava received the lineage. The San-lun School honours him as the first patriarch in China. He translated a number of texts of the Mahaayaana School of Emptiness, including the Madhyamaka-kaarika, Dvaada`sa-dvaara-`saastra, Catu.h`sataka and Ta chih tu lun. The teachings Kumaarajaava spread basically derive from the concept of "everything is empty" which is contained in the three treatises (san lun). Besides researching sectarian affiliations, the present paper analyses and compares how the great Buddhist masters explained the meaning of "emptiness" contained in the three treatises. The present writer also attempts to prove by way of example that the emptiness propounded by the San-lun School inherited the basic nherent emptiness due to dependent origination. The concepts of "conditioned arising" and "imputation" are further subjected to even more profound analysis, and it is shown that their ultimate aim is the valid establishment of "emptiness" while their most fundamental theory lies in the eightfold negation, i.e. the Madhyamaka-kaarika's statement of "non-origination, non-extinction, non destruction, non-permanence, non-identity, non-differentiation, non-coming (into being), non-going (out of being) translation]. Moreover, a complete research is done on the reasons why the San-lun School became so prominent during the Sui and T'ang dynasties. This was mostly due to the efforts Chi-tsang exerted in spreading it, as well as the fact that the main ideas discussed in his numerous works centre around the development of the three concepts of "refutation of the wrong and establishment of the right," "absolute truth and relative truth, " and "the middle way of the eight negations" as well as his mani explanations of the meaning of "emptiness."
