bsolute knowledge rises above the world of appearance and
is altogether true but difficult to express in words. The Yogacara
makes three divisions, dividing the inferior knowledge into two. It
distinguishes first illusory knowledge (_parikalpita_) such as
mistaking a piece of rope for a snake or belief in the existence of
individual souls. Secondly knowledge which depends on the relations of
things (_paratantra_) and which though not absolutely wrong is
necessarily limited, such as belief in the real existence of ropes and
snakes. And thirdly absolute knowledge (_parinishpanna_), which
understands all things as the manifestation of an underlying
principle. The Madhyamikas more simply divide knowledge into
_samvriti-satya_ and _paramartha-satya_, that is the truth of
every-day life and transcendental truth. The world and ordinary
religion with its doctrines and injunctions about good works are real
and true as _samvriti_ but in absolute truth (_paramartham_) we
attain Nirvana and then the world with its human Buddhas and its gods
exists no more. The word _sunyam_ or _sunyata_, that is _void_, is
often used as the equivalent of _paramartham_. Void must be understood
as meaning not an abyss of nothingness but that which is found to be
devoid of all the attributes which we try to ascribe to it. The world
of ordinary experience is not void, for a great number of statements
can be made about it, but absolute truth is void, because nothing
whatever can be predicated of it. Yet even this colourless designation
is not perfectly accurate,[102] because neither being nor not-being
can be predicated of absolute truth. It is for this reason, namely
that they admit neither being nor not-being but something between the
two, that the followers of Nagarjuna are known as the Madhyamikas or
school of the middle doctrine, though the European reader is tempted
to say that their theories are extreme to the point of being a
_reductio ad absurdum_ of the whole system. Yet though much of their
logic seems late and useless sophistry, its affinity to early Buddhism
cannot be denied. The fourfold proposition that the answer to certain
questions cannot be any of the statements "is," "is not," "both is and
is not," "neither is nor is not," is part of the earliest known
stratum of Buddhism. The Buddha himself is represented as saying[103]
that most people hold either to a belief in being or to a belief in
not being. But neither belief is possible for o