Jizang

Jizang was a Chinese Buddhist monk of the Sui and early Tang periods, of Parthian descent, who systematised the Sanlun ('Three Treatises') school, the Chinese form of Madhyamaka. Based on Nāgārjuna's Middle Treatise and Twelve Gate Treatise and Āryadeva's Hundred Treatise, his commentaries and essays made Chinese Madhyamaka a coherent tradition. He is known especially for treating the two truths as levels of teaching rather than two kinds of reality.

Key ideas

• The two truths, conventional and ultimate, are skilful forms of teaching rather than two separate realms of being.
• The two truths can be arranged in ascending levels, each negating the one-sidedness of the level below.
• Refuting wrong views is itself the disclosure of right understanding.
• No position, including emptiness itself, should be grasped as a final view.

Major works

• Sanlun xuanyi (The Profound Meaning of the Three Treatises)
• Erdi yi (The Meaning of the Two Truths)
• Zhongguan lun shu (Commentary on the Middle Treatise)

In the conversation

• Debate Reading Nāgārjuna as a dialetheist imports a problem he did not have Meera Kulkarni · 5 replies