THE SOCIAL MEANING OF THE MIDDLE WAY
The Madhyamika Critique of Indian Ontologies of Identity and Difference
Keywords:
THE MIDDLE WAY, Madhyamika CritiqueAbstract
The essays of Bibhuti Singh Yadav 1943-1999) represent Buddhism as a social invective against various Indian ontologies that either directly underwrote caste society or did nothing to upset the StatUS quo. Specifically, Madhyamika Buddhism, of Nagarjuna's and Candrakirti's Prasangika variety, rejects both the hierarchical essentialism Of caste society and the escapism of a reclusive. renunciate and metasocial nirvana, leaving the individual to demand social equality on religious grounds. The real significance of dissolving the boundaries between samsara and nirvana in Madhyamika lies in its opening the way for Buddhists to return from the forests to their homes and speak to society in its own language, but speak as reformers, so that the call to social justice could re-enter the Indian life-world on Indian terms.
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