I think we are now in a position to understand better "Naagaajuna's Paradox." To begin with, the "two truths" theory is incoherent. For, first, it can be subjected to a Naagaarjunan critique: Are the truths the same or different? If they are the same, they collapse into one another and necessary distinctions are not made. If they are different, a dualism is injected which is contrary to tattva as described. Second, as we all at least must begin with the lower truth, how are we to understand the "higher," since the "lower" concepts carry their "higher" brethren (including the concepts of "higher" and "lower") on their backs, so to say. Thomas Aquinas' idea of analogical predication [73] suggests itself as ready-made for someone looking for a "middle way" between sameness and difference. How useful such a theory might be for Naagaarjuna's purposes is a topic which cannot be dealt with here. But before one jumps to a conclusion about Christian superiority in this matter, it is necessary to remember that Christian exclusivism, combined with great confidence in the adequacy of theological propositions to reality, has historically contributed to substantial Christian violence against other Christians and non-Christians. Religiously motivated homicide is much more difficult to defend on the basis of Buddhist universalism and appreciation of the "emptiness" of doctrines.

　　 Lastly, one might observe that, contrary to Naagaarjuna and the Tractatus, "the higher" is probably the very last thing about which people could be expected to remain silent. This is because of the need to express conceptually one's religious understanding in a way which meaningfully relates that understanding to life. As the history of Buddhism itself suggests, [74] even if the cultivation of discursive consciousness is not the way to achieve direct religious insight, the expression of that insight requires not only silence but also reasoning, speech, and other significant gestures and actions.

NOTES
1. "Naagaarjuna`s knowledge of logic is about on the same level as Plato's" (Richard H. Robinson, "Some Logical Aspects of Naagaarjuna's System," Philosophy East and West 6, no. 4 (January 1957): 295).

2. "Further compression is impossible" (Norman Malcolm, Knowledge and Belief (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 96).

3. Edward Conze, Buddhist Studies 1934-1972 (San Francisco, California: Wheelwright, 1975); hereafter cited as Conze, Buddhist Studies. Originally published in Philosophy East and West 13, no. 1 (January 1963): 105-115.

p. 168

4. Chris Gudmunsen, Wittgenstein and Buddhism (London: Macmillan, 1977), p. viii; hereafter cited as Gudmunsen, Wittgenstein and Buddhism.

5. Ibid.

6. Frederick J. Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon, 1967); hereafter cited as Streng, Emptiness. Streng uses "Ultimate Truth" instead of "Ultimate Reality" when discussing Naagaarjuna (ibid., p. 20, note 4).

7. Ibid., pp. 139f. A similar position is defended by Glyn Richards, "Sunyata: Objective Referent or Via Negativa?" Religious Studies 14(1978): 251-260. "Language cannot describe the world" is the succinct way David Loy describes Streng's position in "How Not to Criticize Naagaarjuna: A Response to L. Stafford Betty, " Philosophy East and West 34, no. 4 (October 1984). I suspect, however, that such unadorned phrasing might give Streng pause.

8. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, 2d ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1958), #23, hereafter cited as Wittgenstein, Investigations.

9. I exclude the possibility that Streng is saying that if one can talk about something then one cannot say that one cannot talk about it, and therefore nothing we can talk about can be "outside the language system." This is vacuous.

10. Streng. Emptiness, p. 138.

11. Kenneth S. Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 1025.

12. "Great Perfection of Wisdom Treatise," in Richard H. Robinson, Early Maadhyamika in India and China (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 50; hereafter cited as Robinson, Early Maadhyamika.

13. Wittgenstein, Investigations, #351 and 352.

14. Streng, Emptiness, p. 140.

15. Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 71.

16. Streng, Emptiness, p. 141.

17. Ibid., p. 138.

18. Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, " trans. Robert Monk, Synthese 17 (1967): p. 238.

19. Streng. Emptiness, p. 141.

20. Gudmunsen, Wittgenstein and Buddhism, p. 33.

21. Ibid., p. 34.

22. Conze, Buddhist Studies, vol. 1,p. 77, quoted by Gudmunsen, in Wittgenstein and Buddhism, p. 34.

23. Wittgenstein, Investigation, #293.

24. Gudmunsen, Wittgenstein and Buddhism, p. 34.

25. Wittgenstein, Investigation, #295 quoted in Gudmunsen, Wittgenstein and Buddhism, p. 35.