Tattva: The Forgotten Concept in Nāgārjuna’s Ontology

Abstract

In discussions of whether Nāgārjuna was an ontological realist or a nihilist, one key concept is omitted from most discussion: the “that-ness” (tattva) of phenomenal reality that is revealed once our conceptual overlay is removed. Once his notion of tattva is understood as a central element in his ontology, the idea that he was a full-blown nihilist disappears.

In discussions of whether Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) entails an ontological nihilism,1 one concept does not get enough attention—“tattva.” “Tattva” means “that (tat)-ness (tva).” It refers to how reality is apart from our conceptualizing. It plays a pivotal role in Nāgārjuna’s ontology, and yet it is largely ignored by commentators today. They translate it as “reality” but fail to attach any significance to it even when discussing Nāgārjuna’s apparent nihilism. It will be argued here that that concept is central to Nāgārjuna’s picture of reality in terms of emptiness and dependent-arising (pratītya-samutpāda). It also forecloses both any ontological nihilism.

1. Tattva in Nāgārjuna’s Works

Tattva is mentioned only rarely in Nāgārjuna’s works. In fact, here are plain English translations and summaries of all the references to tattva that are extant in Sanskrit from Nāgārjuna’s complete philosophical corpus (see Jones 2015):

MK 15.6: Those who see self-existence (svabhāva), the self-existence of another entity (parabhāva), an entity (bhāva), or the absence of an entity (abhāva) do not see the truth/reality (tattva) in the Buddha’s teaching.

MK 18.9–11: [9] Not dependent upon another, pacified, free of being projected upon by conceptual projections (prapañcair aprapañcitam), free of mental discriminations (nirvikalpas), and without multiplicity of meanings (anānārtham)—this is the characteristic (lakṣaṇa) of what is real (tattvasya). [10] Whatever arises dependent upon another thing is not that thing, nor is it different from that thing. Thus, (what is real) is neither annihilated nor eternal. [11] Not one, not diverse, not annihilated, not eternal—this is the immortal teaching of the Buddhas, the guides of the world.

MK 22.8: Having sought the Buddha in this fivefold way (mentioned in verse 1) and finding that he does not exist through something else’s reality (tattva-anyatvena), how can he be thought to exist through dependency?

MK 24.8–9: [8] The Buddhas’ teaching of the doctrine rests upon two categories of truths (satye): truth based on worldly conventions (loka-saṃvṛti-satyam) and truth from the point of view of highest purpose (satya-parama-arthatos). [9] Those who do not discern the distinction of these two categories of truths do not discern the profound truth/reality (tattva) in the teachings of the Buddhas.

RV 98: The true reality (tattva-artha) of what was previously imagined by ignorance is now ascertained. When a (real) entity is not found, how can there be its absence (abhāva)?

SS 72: One who has trust, who seeks reality (tattva), who relies upon this teaching that is free of objective supports (i.e., there is no self-existent entity in reality to support any doctrine), and who considers this principle (of dependent-arising) by reasoning (yukti), overcomes the ideas of entities and the absence of entities and becomes tranquil.

YS 30: Seekers of reality (tattva) should first be told “Everything exists.” Later, when they have comprehended the nature of things (artha) and are free of clinging, then teach them emptiness (viviktatā, i.e., “clarity”).

YS 47–48: [47] That affirmation (of self-existence) is the cause of all views. Without it, afflictions do not arise. Thus, if this is thoroughly understood, views and afflictions completely disappear. [48] And how can this be thoroughly understood? By seeing dependent-arising. The Buddha, the best among knowers of reality (tattva-vida), said “What is born from conditions (dependently exists, but from the ultimate point of view it) is not born.”

• Nāgārjuna also speaks of “seeing reality” (tattva-darśana) and variants:

MK 26.10: One who is subject to root-ignorance (avidyā) forms the dispositions (saṃskārā) that are the basis of the cycle of rebirths. Thus, it is the one who is ignorant who performs an action (because of these dispositions and thus is reborn), not the one who knows by seeing reality.

RV 75: This doctrine—profound, leading to happiness, ungraspable, without an objective support—was proclaimed by the perfect Buddhas, the seers of reality (tattvadarśibhiḥ).

RV 105: From the ultimate point of view (parama-arthatas), this cosmos is beyond real (satya) and unreal (anṛta). And thus by seeing the reality (of things), it cannot be asserted that there is real existence (asti, “it is”) or total nonexistence (na-asti, “it is not”) (to the cosmos).

RV 110–11: Just as the birth and death of an elephant created by magic (māyā) are observed, even though by seeing reality there is neither a birth nor a death (since the elephant is illusory), so too the beginning and end of the illusory cosmos are observed, even though from the ultimate point of view there is neither a beginning nor an end (of an illusion).

SS 62: By seeing reality, we see that root-ignorance (avidyā), which arises from the four perverted errors, does not really exist. Thus, the dispositions that are dependent upon root-ignorance cannot arise. Thus, the remaining steps of the dependent-arising leading to a new rebirth also cannot arise.

YS 5: Those who do not see reality imagine “There is the cycle of rebirth, and there is liberation from it (nirvāṇa).” But those who see reality do not imagine that either the cycle or nirvāṇa is real.

• Nāgārjuna also uses “tattvatas” (“from the point of view of reality”), which functions as an adverb:

MK 17.26: If action by its nature has mental afflictions (kleśas), these afflictions are not real; and if the afflictions are not real, what (real) action could there be from the point of view of reality?

MK 23.2: But things that arise dependent upon errors about what is auspicious and what is inauspicious are not found existing through self-existence. Thus, from the point of view of reality there are no afflictions.2

RV 5: By means of insight (prajñā), one knows from the point of view reality.

RV 31–32: Just as the reflection of a face is seen by means of a mirror, even though from the point of view of reality this reflection nevertheless is not anything real, so too the sense of “I” arises dependent upon the bodily aggregates, even though from the point of view of reality it is in fact nothing but like the reflection of a face.

RV 38: In this way (i.e., by destroying karmic action and rebirth), the arising and destruction of causes and effects are destroyed. So too, from the point of view of reality, there is no existence (asti) or nonexistence (na-asti) of the entire cosmos (loka).

RV 47: A cause born before its effect or born simultaneously with its effect is not a real cause. In fact, any notion of production cannot be conceived from either a conventional point of view or the point of view of reality.

RV 64: From the point of view of reality, both the cosmos (loka) and nirvāṇa do not exist in either the future, the past, or the present. How can there really be any difference between them?

RV 65: Since there is no enduring, there is no arising nor ceasing from the point of view of reality. Thus, how can there really be something being born, enduring, and ceasing?

SS 1: Following worldly conventions (laukika-vyavahārāttu), the Buddhas speak of arising, duration, and cessation, being (sat) and non-being (asat), and inferior, middling, and superior. But the Buddhas do not do so from the point of view of reality (tattva).

SS 30: Since the three characteristics of all compound things (i.e., arising, enduring, and ceasing) are not real, from the point of view of reality there is nothing that is either conditioned or unconditioned.

SS 45: If visible form arises from the material elements, it does not arise out of itself but from something else that is empty of self-existence, and hence it does not exist from the point of view of reality. And since it then arises out of something empty of self-existence, it too is empty of self-existence, and so it is not real.

SS 70: Worldly doctrines are not abolished, but from the point of view of reality the Buddha never taught a doctrine.

YS 44: Those who affirm that entities are established from the point of view of reality are overtaken by mistakes about permanence and so forth.

Like the term “tattva,” the terms “dharmatā” (the nature of things [MK 18.7]) and “yathābhūta” (things “as they really are” [RV 28, 53, 57, 101, 365]) also relate to what is real or the true nature of things. They too are only rarely mentioned.3 There are at least two reasons for not discussing tattva more. First, there is not much to say about the “that-ness” of phenomenal reality. It cannot be conceptualized because it has no parts or discrete features to distinguish. Only MK 18.9 describes its nature, and there the characterization of tattva involves only negatives. This passage declares more what tattva is not than what it is, and this suggests that nothing more positive about the nature of phenomenal reality as it truly is statable. Second, stating anything positive about tattva may give the unenlightened a foothold for thinking that it is “real” in the self-existent sense or an entity of some type.

But that tattva is mentioned rarely does not diminish its significance in Nāgārjuna’s ontology—after all, emptiness (śūnyatā) is central but mentioned rarely. It is still the affirmation that there is a reality independent of what entities we conceptualize. Like emptiness, it is not a separate topic in the Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way since Nāgārjuna’s objective there is to show the ultimate unreality of our conceptual creations by showing them to be empty of self-existence (svabhāva), not to elaborate on what is left once those creations are dismantled. Nor is it discussed as a separate topic in his other works.4 His soteriological goal requires ending attachments, and thus there is little need to say much about the positive nature of tattva, i.e., what is left over once the entities that are the objects of our desires and grasping are seen to be empty of self-existence and thus not “real” in the sense of being self-existent. Ferraro (2014, p. 461) thinks that any attempt to speculate on tattva is a dṛṣṭi, and thus detrimental and should be abandoned. Indeed, ending the projection (prapañca) onto tattva of our mental discriminations (vikalpas) as entities with self-existence is more important for ending attachments than discussing tattva, as indicated by its inclusion in the dedicatory verse of the Fundamental Verses where even emptiness is not mentioned, and to discuss anything positive about tattva’s nature may well lead to more conceptual projection, and thus would be a deterrent to liberation.5 At a minimum, too much discussion of tattva may lead the unenlightened to begin to think of tattva as an entity of some sort.

2. The Meaning of Tattva

Tattva is literally the sheer that-ness (tat-tva) of phenomenal reality as it truly is (MK 15.6, 18.9, 24.9). Tattva is not a hidden reality or reality transcending the phenomenal world that is the source of the world but is simply the way the phenomenal world actually is once we cease our conceptual projections—free of the illusion of entities existing by svabhāva. That is, tattva is not another level of reality but the phenomenal world seen from the highest point of view. The that-ness of reality is directly experienceable. It can be said to be “behind” conceptualized perceptions, but it is not an unexperienceable Kantian noumenon behind phenomena. Rather, it is simply the way the phenomenal world is without our conceptual overlay. Thus, it can be experienced directly and without mediation.

In short, tattva is not itself a separate reality but is only phenomenal reality apart from our mental conceptions—Nagarjuna describes it as only the that-ness of what is real. The Buddhist analysis of dharmas shows that their interest is only in our experience of the world, not the nature of the world apart from our experience of it. Bhāvas are the conventional entities made of parts that we see in the world, and dharmas are the most basic components of our experienced world that we analyze out, and tattva is the experienced world apart from such conceptual analyses. That is, tattva is the sheer that-ness that we can experience in a state of consciousness that is free of our discriminating discrete entities (nirvikalpa, “without discrimination”).6 In terms of the general social construction of reality, not everything is a human construct, and tattva is the unconstructed “brute fact” on the basis of which such construction takes place (see Burton 2013, p. 154)—our experienced world is not construction “all the way down.” T. R. V. Murti did treat tattva as an absolute reality (Murti 1960, p. 235), but his position owes more to Advaita Vedanta than to a careful reading of Nāgārjuna’s works. (Calling tattva an “Absolute” also leads to reading in Western ideas and can easily lead to prapañca.) Neither tattva nor anything else is presented as a reality transcending the phenomenal world, unlike Brahman which transcends the phenomenal realm. Tattva is simply the phenomenal world as it really is.7 Experiencing the phenomenal world as free of self-existent entities is seeing the “that-ness” of reality.

From the point of view of reality (tattvatas), there is no existence (asti) or nonexistence (na-asti) of the entire cosmos (RV 38), since “exist” and “not exist” apply only to svabhāva-endowed realities. From the point of view of reality, what is empty is not real (SS 45). (If there were self-existent entities, then the that-ness of things would be a collection of clashing pieces.) Nor is tattva itself a self-existent entity or the lack of one. It is entities—conventional objects (bhāvas) and the ultimate components of the experienced world (dharmas)—that are described as lacking self-existence and being dependently-arisen, not tattva. Tattva is never depicted as self-existent, but since it is not an entity, it is also never depicted as empty. Statements about it must be truths from the highest point of view (satya-parama-arthatos), since there is no conventional object corresponding to the term that would be subject of conventional truths (loka-saṃvṛti-satyam).8

When Nāgārjuna mentions the nature of tattva in MK 18.9, he does not mention svabhāva or śūnyatā but only tattva’s characteristic mark (lakṣaṇa). Emptiness only comes into play in the context of possibly svabhāva-endowed realities. Treating tattva as self-existent would be improper since, in Nāgārjuna’s metaphysics, svabhāva only applies to entities. Thus, is-ness (astitā) is not a synonym for tattva since Nāgārjuna uses “is” (asti) and “is not” (na-asti) only in connection with things existing by svabhāva. In fact, we must pass beyond “is-ness” and “is-not-ness” (RV 61) to see what is truly real. So too, the basic word for reality—satya—is connected only to “is” and “is not” (e.g., RV 105). Like “satya,” “tattva” means both truth and reality (as in MK 15.6). But since Nāgārjuna connects satya with “is” and “is not” with entities (i.e., what would be real by self-existence), he does not equate tattva with satya.

If Nāgārjuna wanted to deny reality to the that-ness of the phenomenal world independent of our conceptualizations, he could have called it nonexistent (asat) or have said that there is no such reality (na-asti, na bhavati), but he does not. He could have applied the standard Indic examples of the horns of a rabbit or the son of a barren woman, but he does not. Nor does he ever use the analogies for what is empty for what is tattva: as in the Prajñāpāaramitā texts, he likens entities to a magical illusion (māyā), a mirage, a dream, an illusory phantasm, a reflection, a bubble, foam, a circle of light produced by spinning a torch fast, and the imaginary castle in the sky of the Gandharva musicians and dancers (MK 7.34, 17.33, 23.8–9; SS 36, 40–42, 66). Tattva is not an entity and thus cannot be properly described as self-existent (svabhāva) or as a real entity. Nor is tattva “illusory” in the way that entities that are selfless are, since they are not “real” in the sense of being self-existent.

In short, there is an undeniable reality apart from our conceptions that is not questioned. Since Nāgārjuna gave all the terms expressing existence—sat, satya, is (asti), and is-ness (astita)—to his opponents, it is hard to express the existence of dependently arisen phenomena whose reality is between the “is” of eternalism and the “is not” of the total absence of existence. He was left with the word “tattva”—“that-ness.” But tattva is not an entity of any type. Tattva is simply the phenomenal realm free of our conceptual division of it into illusory self-contained objects—conventional entities (bhāvas) and the constituents of experience (dharmas). It does not mean merely to see the true nature of bhāvas and dharmas but to see something reality as it truly is—the phenomenal world free of self-contained parts that crash into each other and thus is “pacified” (śanta) (MK 7.16, 18.9, 22.12, 23.15; VV29). Nāgārjuna uses “tattva” in connection with the reality of the entire cosmos (RV 38, 64), not just in terms of whether the components of our experience of the world (the dharmas) are real (i.e., exhibit that-ness rather than allegedly being self-existent). It is not simply seeing bhāvas and dharmas properly or seeing dharmas rather than bhāvas. It is not a condition, feature, or mark of entities or a reality that they possess.9 That is, tattva is not the reality of things. Even dharmas are only conventionally real—from the ultimately correct ontological point of view, there are no dharmas but only the that-ness of phenomenal reality.

The word “tattva” is not an adjective modifying bhāvas and dharmas, but a noun designating something else. If we think of tattva as the nature of objects or something they possess, we are still thinking of phenomenal reality in terms of a collection of objects or independent chunks of being; to see reality that way, the dualizing mind would still have to be at work. It is contrasted with the point of view arising from root-ignorance (avidyā). To focus only on the svabhāva-free entities in any way is to miss “pacified” reality. Seeing phenomenal reality as it really is (yathābhūta) requires seeing the changes in the world without any recourse to alleged permanent entities or a permanent seer. This is not to say that bhāvas and dharmas cannot be parceled out by concepts for our convenience but only that, as independent discrete objects, they are illusory—they are our conceptual creations and should not be the focus when considering reality as truly is.

Thus, tattva is not made by combining empty parts. Tattva is not the sum of all bhāvas and dharmas, since those are based on our conceptions and are not self-existent entities. That is, tattva is a collection or set of empty bhāvas and dharmas—to see reality in terms of entities (bhāvas and dharmas) would still involve imposing our conceptions on reality. Tattva is not a thing with parts. That is, viewing phenomenal reality as a collection of even empty and selfless bhāvas and dharmas, i.e., the totality of illusory parts, is not looking at the cosmos from the point of view of reality but from our point of view. Nor is tattva the ontological ground of entities since, for Nāgārjuna, entities and dharmas are not discrete realities of any kind. Nor is it a whole—that would be another entity. That is, Nāgārjuna does not argue for an interconnected holism but only for the that-ness of reality. Even when seeing phenomenal reality as a series of svabhāva-free impermanent parts, the series itself is not a permanent or impermanent entity, as he says concerning series (MK 17.7; SS 22). Thus, although Nāgārjuna does not discuss tattva in toto, the whole of the nature realm is not itself an entity existing by some type of svabhāva—tattva does not fall within the metaphysics of self-existent “realities” that he rejects.

In sum, to see tattva as in any way made up even of only dharmas is looking at the phenomenal realm in the wrong way and misses the character of both tattva and the dharmas. Dharmas and bhāvas can be seen as simply our conceptualizations (Burton 2013, p. 152). They are not ultimately real and so cannot have tattva as a property. Dharmas and bhāvas are what Nāgārjuna discusses, but such conventional entities are not the final layer of reality for Nāgārjuna, and so the question of ontology cannot stop there. Phenomena are dependent-arisen, but their conditioning by other phenomena is all Nāgārjuna discusses, not the that-ness of things.10 Tattva is not in any way conventionally created or dependently arisen—it is what is left when all our conventional activity is removed. Nor is tattva the equivalent of emptiness or dependent-arising. Nagarjuna treats emptiness and dependent-arising as only conventional dependent conceptual designations (prajñaptir-upādāya) of the lack of self-existence to entities (MK 22.11, 24.18). But when he equates emptiness and dependent-arising in Fundamental Verses 24.18, he does not include tattva —thus, he must see the “that-ness” of reality as something other than the ideas of emptiness and dependent-arising. Emptiness and dependent-arising are matters of entities, but tattva is not related to individual entities but rather is reality independent of conceptualized entities.11 Again, nothing in Nāgārjuna’s works indicates that tattva (or dharmatā) is itself empty—he never ascribes emptiness to tattva or connects the two concepts. Nor does Nāgārjuna address the issue of whether tattva is the “ultimate reality” or not, although it is sometimes translated that way (e.g., Ruegg 1981, pp. 24, 44, 47). Again, the term merely denotes the way the phenomenal world is independent of our conceptualizing. This phenomenal reality is the focus of attention. Tattva can be considered the ultimate phenomenal reality, but Nāgārjuna, like most Buddhists, does not consider whether the phenomenal realm has a transcendent source, since they consider that question irrelevant to ending our suffering.

Thus, tattva is free of any discrete parts that we normally cut the world up into through our discriminations of distinct entities—it does not have the sharp, artificial divisions that our conceptual differentiations suggest. But as noted above, Nāgārjuna does not give any substantive characterizations of reality as it truly is, which might interfere with his soteriological objective of ending rebirths by giving new conceptual objects to focus upon and desire. Rather, he focuses on denying that entities are self-existent and presents tattva as simply what is left when our erroneous projection of independent parts is ended. He equates this emptiness with the basic Buddhist metaphysics of impermanence and dependent-arising (MK 24.18, SS 68), but he does not equate it with tattva, since tattva is not an entity that could be empty, impermanent, or dependentlyarisen. But emptiness can be seen as the nature of the that-ness of reality and dependent-arising is how things operate in the that-ness of reality.

Also note how, when the Buddha is described as the foremost knower of reality as it truly is (RV 75; YS 48), he is described as the seer of tattva (tattva-darśin)—it is virtually a title for him.12 In Mahāyāna Buddhistm, insight (prajñā) is how one knows reality (tattva) (RV 5; Ruegg 1981, p. 24). It is a direct and unmediated consciousness of what is real. Christian Lindtner states that prajna demonstrates that conceptual proliferation (prapañca) lacks any objective support, citing Sixty Verses on Argument 25–27; “is” (asti) and “is not” (na-asti) are only “hypostasized” (via prapañca) by the activity of vikalpa (discrimination) and do not appertain to reality (tattva) (Lindtner 1982, p. 271). The general Buddhist position is that reality free of our conceptual projections of self-existent objects can be seen in a yogic state of nirvikalpa-samādhi, although Nāgārjuna does not discuss this. He does refer to discernment (viveka) (e.g., YS 59), but he does not reject sense-experience of the phenomenal world as noncognitive—he simply wants to correct our experiences of the world so that we see what is really there rather than our illusory conceptual projections. Those who see reality (tattva-darśana) do not form the dispositions underlying the actions that propel the cycling of rebirth (MK 26.10), i.e., they are liberated from rebirth. And the enlightened can utilize our concepts, since they do not project them onto tattva.

3. Contemporary Discussions

Early Indian critics of the Madhyamaka doctrines could not get past Nāgārjuna’s denial of self-existence (svabhāva): without something real in the svabhāva sense, Mādhyamikas could not escape ending up being nihilists. The that-ness that Nāgārjuna affirmed was not enough in the face of such emptiness of objects. Even the early Buddhist Yogāchāras who had a doctrine of tattva asserted that the Madhyamaka doctrine of emptiness made the school unacceptable—because of their doctrine of emptiness, there could be no foundation for the other Madhyamaka doctrines (see Jones 2024, pp. 274–77).13

Modern Western commentators generally agree. Translators routinely translate “tattva” as “reality,” “truth,” the “nature of reality,” “true nature,” or “ultimate truth” and translate “tattvatas” as “in reality,” and yet most give it no significance in discussions of Nāgārjuna’s ontology. According to Ruegg (1981, pp. 46–47): “To indicate reality Nāgārjuna has there [in the Fundamental Verses] confined himself—apart from the well-established words nirvāṇa and śūnyatā—to the terms paramārtha (xxiv. 8, 10), tattva (xviii. 9 and xxiv. 9) and dharmatā (xviii. 7).” But Ruegg leaves it at that. In summarizing the Sixty Verses on Argument, Lindtner (1982, pp. 100–1) refers to reality as it truly is (tattva) as free of all ontological and conceptual dualities but does not discuss tattva further. Indeed, the concept “tattva” does refer to reality, and it deserves a prominent place in discussions of Nāgārjuna’s ontology and nihilism.

The reality left when the emptiness of bhāvas and dharmas is affirmed—the that-ness of phenomena—is given no significance even when it is noticed. David Kalupahana claims that when Nāgārjuna used “tattva,” he was “not referring to ‘ultimate truth’ but to the realization of and attainment of freedom from birth” (Kalupahana [1975] 1991, p. 59). If “tathya-darśana” [sic] in MK 26 were meant literally, it would “destroy all that Nāgārjuna attempted in the previous twenty-five chapters” (ibid.: 375). Richard King goes so far as to claim the following: “In fact even the term ‘reality’ (tattva) is, strictly speaking, inapplicable since Nāgārjuna subverts the distinction between so-called reality and illusion” (King 1989, p. 192). Harsh Narain equates tattva with svabhāva in the general sense of “character” (Narain 1997, p. 124) and asserts that, when Nāgārjuna uses “tattva,” he “does not mean to suggest that there is a reality corresponding to his definition” (ibid.: 125). For Eviatar Shulman, the status of tattva warranted only a footnote—that Nāgārjuna used “terms such as tattva, dharmatā, and nirvāṇa not as a description of an actual state, but rather as a poetic description of a truth that exists only in the realms of the imagination” (Shulman 2007, p. 146n21).

Tattva is also barely noticed by scholars discussing Nāgārjuna’s alleged nihilism. The one exception is Ferraro (2013, 2014, 2017), although he too does not give tattva its central importance in Nāgārjuna’s scheme of things. According to Ferraro, Nāgārjuna is a realist, since he admits the existence of a reality (tattva, satya, and paramārtha) that exists independently of at least the ordinary workings of the mind and that cannot be described or verbalized (Ferraro 2014, p. 452).14 Advocates of Nāgārjuna’s alleged nihilism of course deny any reality to tattva. Siderits and Garfield (2013, pp. 662–63), in responding to Ferraro, cannot see tattva or dharmatā as evidence that Nāgārjuna posits an “inexpressible ultimate” but explain away the passages as at most being about dharmas or otherwise dismissible. Garfield (2014) argues that Nāgārjuna was not a nihilist (because he affirms the conventional existence of dharmas) without even mentioning tattva. Jan Westerhoff believes that the Madhyamaka theory of emptiness rules out a realist theory of language (Westerhoff 2010, p. 65). He can discuss the nihilist interpretation barely mentioning tattva (Westerhoff 2016). Even in his “comprehensive critique” of Nāgārjuna and the question of foundationalism, tattva is not mentioned (Westerhoff 2017). That trend continues today (e.g., McNamara 2024). Garfield and Priest (2023) still discuss the question of “ultimate reality” in Nāgārjuna’s works without mentioning tattva.

The alternative to seeing tattva as referring to reality per se as it is free of our conceptualizations is seeing the term as meaning simply to look at the that-ness of the dharmas and bhāvas. That is, the term is not carrying any ontological implications at all—it simply directs our attention to looking at the real nature of dharmas and bhavas. It then would mean not “reality” but the “true nature of things” or “the way things are” in a general sense without any ontological implications i.e., seeing the emptiness of dharmas and bhāvas. And commentators often do supply “of things” in translations of “tattva” without discussing why that is supplied when nothing in the Sanskrit suggests that things (bhāvas and dharmas) are being discussed.

But there are three problems with this alternative. First, the Sanskrit verses do not usually mention entities in connection with tattva when they should if that were the intent; rather, the verses mention reality independent of conceptualized entities. Second, to connect tattva with entities directs our focus to the discriminated entities while Nagarjuna is directing our attention away from our discriminations. That is, this alternative keeps the focus on entities, not reality independent of our conceptualizations. From a conventional point of view, tattva has parts, but not from the ultimate point of view. A focus on parts would strengthen concepts in our view of things and may lead to construing tattva as a matter of only conventional truth. Third, the only verse that characterizes tattva—Fundamental Verses 18.9—also is about reality per se: “Not dependent upon another, pacified, free of being projected upon by conceptual projections, free of mental discriminations, and without multiplicity of meanings—this is the characteristic of what is real.” Entities are dependent upon one another, but tattva is not. It is the phenomenal realm that is pacified and free of mental discriminations, not merely individual entities. Entities are described as empty of self-existence; tattva is not. Entities are dependent upon one another, but tattva is not. What is conditioned is not one or many, or being (sat) or nonbeing (asat) (SS 32), and from the point of view of reality, there is no being or nonbeing (SS 1), but these concern bhavas—tattva is beyond the existence of objects. Thus, is-ness (asti-ta) is not a synonym, and we must pass beyond “is-ness” and “is-not-ness” (RV 61) to see what is truly real. Of course, tattva would embrace the true reality of what we differentiate as “entities,” but from verse 18.9, it appears tattva encompasses more than just the nature of dharmas and bhāvas—it is the reality independent of our conceptualized things.

But Ferraro is quite correct when he states the following: “The reading of tattva (that-ness) in a different sense from that of ‘reality’, though in some ways possible (as Siderits and Garfield 2013 show), requires introducing adjustments or alterations to the more common use of the term” (Ferraro 2014, p. 459). The lack of positive statements about the nature of tattva in Nāgārjuna’s works may have been taken to mean that dharmas and bhāvas are his final ontological categories. Commentators do not see that tattva is ontologically different from the dharmas and bhāvas—for them, the concept never goes past referring to simply the true description of things. In effect, they treat tattva as simply another type of entity, but there is no warrant in his philosophical corpus for such a move.

4. Conclusions

Despite what these commentators state, tattva is Nāgārjuna’s designation of phenomenal reality as it truly is once we remove our projection of conceptualized entities onto it—it is what is experienced once the perception of svabhāva-based self-contained entities is ended. In short, there is something real there. This gives Nāgārjuna a positive ontological foundation and thus eliminates any ultimate nihilism: there is reality, and the that-ness of things is that there are no self-existent things. Everything arises dependent upon other things. Tattva provides the reality independent of the interdependent empty bhāvas and dharmas—it is not dependent on those dependentlyarisen phenomena, let alone alleged svabhāva-endowed entities or anything else phenomenal. If commentators did not fixate on the exotic idea of emptiness as Nāgārjuna’s final word on ontology, but noticed what reality Nāgārjuna says is left, nihilism in Nagarjunian studies would not gain much support. Only by ignoring tattva or twisting its plain meaning is a fundamental reality in Nāgārjuna’s ontology deniable.15

That is enough to conclude that Nāgārjuna’s ontology is ultimately not a nihilism, even though “is” (asti) does not apply to the that-ness of reality in his ontology. But when Nāgārjuna speaks of that-ness, he means phenomenal reality as it truly is independent of our ideas. He is not subverting all notions of reality but only the independent existence of entities (bhāvas and dharmas). Thus, translating “tattva” as “reality” is appropriate. Entities may be only conventionally real or “illusory,” since they are not “real” in the svabhāva sense, and thus he is not a realist who thinks our conceptions reflect real objects, but he a realist in the broader sense of affirming that there is a reality independent of our conceptions of entities. For all of these reasons, the way that Nāgārjuna’s ontology is discussed today is misguided and should be reframed, with tattva given central importance.