The Mahiiyiina
'dharma' is? What he wants to point out, by appeal to funda-
mental principles that all Buddhist thought takes for granted,
is that a 'dharma' certainly cannot be defined as that which pos-
sesses its own inherent existence (as opposed to the conven~tional existence of the 'self', for example). An account of reality
in terms of ultimately real, self-existent .dharmas cannot havethe status of ultimate truth but only conventional truth. In as much
as it presents dharmas as representing the ultimate divisions
in the analysis of experience, beyond which one cannot go, all
Abhidharma tended to define dharmas as those things which
exist in themselves (svabhiivalsabhiiva). Nagarjuna's point is
that, on Buddhist principles, such ultimate divisions of analysis
are always arbitrary and cannot be taken as referring to ultimate
realities in themselves. Although he is not explicit, in presenting
his critique of dharmas as 'self-existents', he seems to have in
mind particularly the kind of ontology of a dharma we know
from the works of the Sarv.astivada-Vaibha~ika Abhidharma.^32
This lays great stress on dharmas as the ultimate 'substantial bits'
(dravya) of mentality or materiality out of which the world as a
whole is constructed. For Nagarjuna an account of the world in
Abhidharma terms is perfectly legitimate, as long as we do not
view it as an exact and final description of how things are; like
the Buddha's teachings generally, Abhidharma must ultimately
be seen as 'conventional', taught for the purpose of the aban-
doning of greed, hatred, and delusion.^33
The Perfection of Wisdom literature is Mahayanist in so far
as it privileges the path of the bodhisattva; likewise, on the evid-
ence of the other writings usually attributed to him, the author
of the Mula-Madhyamaka-Kiirikii seems to have been a follower
of the Mahayana. But if Nagarjuna is a Mahayanist, this fact
is entirely incidental to the philosophy of the Madhyamaka-
Kiirikii. In seeking to establish his understanding of emptiness,
he appeals not to the authority of the Perfection of Wisdom Siitras,
but to that of the discourses of the Buddha on dependent arising
preserved in the ancient Saq~.yukta division of the canon.^34 In fact
neither the early Perfection of Wisdom siitras nor Nagarjuna seem