The Hermeneutic of Concealing and Un-concealing of Being in Madhyamaka-Buddhism and Advaita-Ved?nta

Abstract

In the history of Indian philosophy the relationship between Advaita-Vedānta and Madhyamaka-Buddhism is constantly disputed. It is argued, how one thought has eventually benefited from the other. This work explores the above-mentioned relationship in the context of Heidegger’s intercession with Nietzsche, where concealment and un-concealment are understood as explicit ontological characters of Being. Subsequently, Nāgārjuna’s description of reality as ‘Śūnya’ or void is explored as an expression of nihilism, nevertheless similar to Heidegger’s observation of concealment of Being in ‘nihil’. And Advaita-Vedānta, as a thinking of non-duality expresses the hermeneutic of un-concealment of Being, i.e., of ‘one’ and ‘the same’. These ontological characters of Being allow us to discover a sabotaging brotherhood between Nāgārjuna and Śankara, because the ‘nihil’ and ‘something’ are ontologically two essential sides of the same thinking.