中論 觀本際品第十一

The questioner challenges the text with a sūtra: it says both that “beings come and go in saṃsāra and the prior limit cannot be found” and that “beings and saṃsāra exist here.” If it speaks of existence, why then say there is no findable prior limit?

The respondent first establishes the speaker: “There are three kinds of sage.” The Buddha is supreme among them and is therefore called the Great Sage; moreover, “nothing the Buddha says is other than a true statement.” Since it is a true statement, every word must be taken seriously to the end.

Beginningless Does Not Mean Immeasurably Ancient

“Saṃsāra has no beginning, and likewise has no end.” Qingmu explains only one sentence: “The first and last limits of saṃsāra cannot be found; therefore it is said to have no beginning.”

Not one word in the reason refers to length. The beginning is not too distant to find; the position called “beginning” cannot stand. The former leaves a mystery, while the latter dissolves the puzzle.

Without Two Ends, No Midpoint Can Be Measured

The questioner retreats one step: even without beginning and end, there should still be a middle. The verse answers: “If there is neither beginning nor end, how could there be a middle?”

Qingmu puts it plainly: “A beginning exists because of middle and end; an end exists because of beginning and middle.” Beginning, middle, and end are not three things that stand independently, but three names that delimit one another. When the two ends cannot be found, the middle has no boundary on which to stand—“In saṃsāra there is no beginning, middle, or end.”

Each of the Three Positions Tried in Turn

Birth first and aging-and-death later produces “birth without aging-and-death and aging-and-death without birth”; yet “by principle, birth should include aging-and-death, and aging-and-death should include birth.” Remove one side, and the other no longer becomes that side.

Aging-and-death first and birth afterward makes aging-and-death “without a cause,” because “birth comes later”; moreover, “without birth, how could there be aging-and-death?”

Both together at the same time: first, “death would already exist at the moment of birth,” although “by principle, there should be existence at birth and nonexistence at death.” Existence and nonexistence would occur simultaneously—“this is not so.” Second, “if they arise at the same time, they do not mutually serve as causes”—“just as a cow’s two horns emerge at once and are not causes of each other.” Simultaneous appearance is only simultaneous appearance.

When all three routes are exhausted, the verse rebukes: “Why continue conceptual proliferation and assert the existence of birth, aging, and death?” Qingmu concludes that they are “unborn and ultimately empty.” The rebuke is not directed at speaking of birth and death, but at “asserting determinate marks.”

Not Only Saṃsāra

“All causes and fruits, marks and what bears a mark,” “experience and experiencer and all dharmas whatsoever”—“not only in saṃsāra can the prior limit not be found.” Qingmu concludes that these “all lack a prior limit; it is not only saṃsāra that lacks one.” Saṃsāra was discussed first only “to disclose the teaching briefly.”

Saṃsāra is the example that cuts closest to the body. What is learned is a method, and its use lies elsewhere.

The Bhāviveka-line Prajñāpradīpa Commentary adds that having no limit or boundary is spoken within conventional truth; the Sthiramati-line Mahāyāna Madhyamaka Commentary extends the three routes to cause and fruit and to mark and what bears a mark; Jizang’s Commentary on the Treatise on the Middle further opens four intentions, refutes four views, and distinguishes two layers of causelessness—one by rigorous exclusion and one by provisional allowance. All belong to what is carried forward, recorded without adjudication.

Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva, author; the brahmin Qingmu, commentator; Tripiṭaka Master Kumārajīva of the Later Qin, translator. Treatise on the Middle, fascicle two, “Examination of the Prior Limit, Chapter Eleven,” Taishō T30n1564. Paragraph-initial〔T30 …〕marks a Taishō page-column-line anchor.

1. Question: Since the Sūtra Speaks of Beings and Saṃsāra, Why Does It Also Say That the Prior Limit Cannot Be Found?

〔T30 0016a05〕The questioner says: The Sūtra on the Beginningless Limit says that beings come and go within saṃsāra, while the prior limit cannot be found. Yet the sūtra plainly says that beings and saṃsāra exist. Through what causes and conditions is this claim made?

The respondent then answers as follows.

2. What the Great Sage Taught: Saṃsāra Has No Beginning and Likewise No End

What the Great Sage taught is that the prior limit cannot be found: saṃsāra has no beginning, and likewise has no end.

There are three kinds of sage. The first are non-Buddhists who have attained the five supernormal powers; the second are arhats and pratyekabuddhas; the third are great bodhisattvas who have attained supernormal powers. Among these three kinds, the Buddha is foremost and is therefore called the Great Sage. Not a single word spoken by the Buddha is other than a true statement. Saṃsāra has no beginning. Why? Because neither its first nor its last limit can be found, it is said to have no beginning. If you say that since it has neither beginning nor end, it should have a middle, this too is wrong. Why?

3. Without Beginning or End, From Where Could a Middle Come?

If there is neither beginning nor end, how could there be a middle? Therefore, within this, neither before, after, nor simultaneous occurrence exists.

Only because there are a middle and an end can one speak of a beginning; only because there are a beginning and a middle can one speak of an end. If neither beginning nor end exists, how could a middle exist? In saṃsāra there is no beginning, middle, or end. Therefore, before, after, and simultaneous occurrence cannot be found. Why?

4. Birth and Aging-and-Death: The Three Routes of Before, After, and Simultaneous Occurrence

If birth existed first and aging-and-death only afterward, there would be birth without aging-and-death, and there would also be aging-and-death without birth.

If aging-and-death existed first and birth only afterward, aging-and-death would be without a cause, and there would be aging-and-death without birth.

If a being in saṃsāra were first born, gradually grew old, and only afterward died, then birth would contain no aging-and-death. By principle, birth should include aging-and-death, and aging-and-death should include birth. Further, to have birth without aging-and-death is also wrong, nor does aging-and-death exist without being caused by birth. If aging-and-death existed first and birth afterward, aging-and-death would have no cause because birth comes later. Moreover, before birth, where could aging-and-death come from? If one says that birth and aging-and-death cannot be placed before or after one another, then changes the claim to say they are established at the same time, this incurs the same fault. Why?

Birth and aging-and-death cannot coexist at the same time. If they did, death would already be present at the moment of birth, and both would be without a cause.

To say that birth and aging-and-death occur at the same time is wrong. Why? Because death would already exist at the moment of birth. By principle, there should be existence at the time of birth and nonexistence at the time of death; if death already existed at the time of birth, this could not be established. If the two arose at the same time, they would not mutually serve as causes. Just as a cow’s two horns emerge at the same time and are not causes of one another. Therefore:

5. Since None of the Three Routes Is Established, Why Continue Conceptual Proliferation?

If beginning, end, and simultaneous occurrence are all impossible, why continue conceptual proliferation and assert that birth, aging, and death exist?

Because reflecting upon birth, aging, and death reveals faults in all three, they are unborn and ultimately empty. Why do you now cling to conceptual proliferation about birth, aging, and death and assert that they possess determinate marks? Further:

6. Not Only Saṃsāra: All Dharmas Lack a Prior Limit

All causes and fruits, marks and what bears a mark, experience and experiencer, and every dharma whatsoever—not only is the prior limit of saṃsāra unfindable, but the prior limit of every such dharma is likewise nonexistent.

All dharmas means causes and fruits, marks and what bears a mark, experience and experiencer, and the rest. All lack a prior limit; it is not only saṃsāra that lacks one. Saṃsāra is said to lack a prior limit because the teaching is being disclosed in brief.

When questioning reaches its end, it always arrives at the same sentence: How did it all begin?

The person asking has already installed one thing in the mind—belief that there is a beginning somewhere, though it has not yet been found. It cannot be found because it is too distant, too ancient, or incompletely recorded. The task is merely to locate that point.

This chapter is called “Examination of the Prior Limit.” The prior limit is the earliest boundary being sought. From beginning to end, the chapter says only one thing: that point is not hidden; it cannot stand in the first place.

One Question: The Sūtra Speaks of Existence, and the Same Sūtra Says It Cannot Be Found

The chapter opens with a challenge from the questioner, and what he holds in his hand is a sūtra.

He says that the Sūtra on the Beginningless Limit teaches that “beings come and go in saṃsāra, while the prior limit cannot be found,” yet the same sūtra also says, “Here it speaks of beings and saṃsāra.” Since it says there are beings who come and go and a saṃsāra through which they pass, how can it also say that the prior limit cannot be found?

The question is forceful because it does not come from outside. It takes the tradition’s own sūtra and points to what looks like an internal contradiction: the same text speaks of existence and says that the limit cannot be found.

Where is the skeleton of this question? In an unspoken assumption: to say that something exists is to say that it has a beginning. If beings exist, there must be a moment when beings began; if saṃsāra exists, there must be a point when saṃsāra began. The entire chapter’s answer consists in dismantling this assumption.

First Establish the Speaker: Who Is the Great Sage?

The respondent does not enter the argument immediately, but first establishes the speaker.

The verse says, “What the Great Sage taught is that the prior limit cannot be found.” Qingmu pauses over this sentence to explain what “Great Sage” means: “There are three kinds of sage.” First are non-Buddhists who have attained the five supernormal powers; second are arhats and pratyekabuddhas; third are great bodhisattvas who have attained supernormal powers. The Buddha is supreme among these three and is therefore called the Great Sage.

Readers may easily skip this passage, yet it does something important: it acknowledges that “sage” is not a designation monopolized by Buddhists. Non-Buddhists who attain the five supernormal powers also count as sages; so do arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and great bodhisattvas. Qingmu does not expel others from sagehood, but says only that the Buddha is supreme among them. It is a very candid way of speaking—first order the titles honestly, then proceed.

Only then comes the decisive sentence: “Nothing the Buddha says is other than a true statement.” Since the questioner brings a sūtra, the respondent first sets the sūtra’s standing firmly in place. If the speaker makes true statements, then “the prior limit cannot be found” cannot be read as expedient language, exaggeration, or approximation. It is a true statement and must be taken seriously word by word—and what follows in the chapter does exactly that, all the way to the end.

Beginningless Does Not Mean “A Very, Very Long Time Ago”

The verse continues: “Saṃsāra has no beginning, and likewise has no end.” Qingmu offers only one sentence of explanation, but it sets the direction of the whole chapter: “The first and last limits of saṃsāra cannot be found; therefore it is said to have no beginning.”

Notice the direction of inference. It is not that saṃsāra is first known to be immensely long, so long that its beginning cannot be seen, and is therefore called beginningless. Rather, the two positions of first and last cannot stand at all, and therefore it is called beginningless.

These two kinds of “beginningless” are entirely different. The first still concedes a starting point but says that people do not know where it is; the second says that the position called “starting point” is itself unestablished. The first leaves a mystery, while the second dissolves the puzzle.

When people hear that saṃsāra is beginningless, most first imagine the former—an expanse of time so long that it has no visible end. Yet not one word in Qingmu’s reason refers to length. He says only that the first and last limits cannot be found.

The questioner immediately hears the difference and retreats one step: Fine, even if there is no beginning and no end, there should still be a middle. Qingmu directly judges: “This too is not so.”

Without Two Ends, No Midpoint Can Be Measured

The verse follows quickly: “If there is neither beginning nor end, how could there be a middle?” Its conclusion is: “Therefore, within this, neither before, after, nor simultaneous occurrence exists.”

Qingmu gives an utterly plain reason: “A beginning exists because of middle and end, and an end exists because of beginning and middle.”

A beginning is called a beginning because a middle and end follow it; an end is called an end because a beginning and middle precede it. The three positions are not three things each able to stand by itself, but three names that delimit one another. Remove two, and the remaining one cannot even acquire its name.

Since beginning and end cannot be found, a middle has no boundary on which to stand. It is not negated by anyone; nothing is there to draw its boundary. Qingmu therefore concludes: “In saṃsāra there is no beginning, middle, or end.”

On a line without two endpoints, no midpoint can be measured. This is not inaccurate measurement; there is nothing to measure.

Birth and Aging-and-Death: Each of the Three Positions Tried in Turn

Once beginning, middle, and end prove incoherent, the argument changes to a question closer to the body: take birth and aging-and-death—which comes first?

There are only three possibilities: birth first, aging-and-death first, or both at once. The verse and commentary try each in turn.

First route: birth first, aging-and-death afterward. The verse proposes, “If birth existed first and aging-and-death afterward,” then immediately lists two consequences: “There would be birth without aging-and-death, and aging-and-death without birth.”

If birth were first established on its own, aging-and-death would not yet have arrived, so this would be a birth containing no aging-and-death. Yet Qingmu says plainly: “By principle, birth should include aging-and-death, and aging-and-death should include birth.” Birth and aging-and-death stand as a mutually dependent pair; remove one, and the other no longer becomes that side of the pair. A birth that never ages or dies is not the birth of which we speak. The aging-and-death that later appears separately would likewise become aging-and-death that did not arise from birth: “Nor does aging-and-death exist without being caused by birth.”

Second route: aging-and-death first, birth afterward. Reverse the order. The verse proposes, “If aging-and-death existed first and birth afterward,” with the consequence: “It would be without a cause, and there would be aging-and-death without birth.”

Birth still comes later, so from where did the aging-and-death that appears first come? Qingmu says, “Aging-and-death would be without a cause,” and gives the reason directly: “Because birth comes later.” Then he presses with another question: “Without birth, how could there be aging-and-death?” How could something not yet born already have its aging and its death?

Reversing the sequence saves nothing; it merely moves the fault to the other side.

Third route: both at once. Once neither sequence succeeds, the questioner changes the claim and says that the two occur simultaneously. Qingmu first marks this as a third proposal forced by the previous failures, then immediately judges: “This too incurs a fault.”

The verse says: “Birth and aging-and-death cannot coexist at the same time”; “death would then exist at the time of birth, and both would be without a cause.”

The fault has two layers, and Qingmu distinguishes them clearly. The first is contradiction of function: “By principle there should be existence at birth and nonexistence at death.” At birth there is existence; at death there is nonexistence—these are opposed phases. If death were already present at birth, existence and nonexistence would occur at the same time. Qingmu judges: “This is not so.”

The second layer is harder to notice: mutual causation fails. “If they arise at the same time, they do not mutually serve as causes.” If two things truly appear simultaneously, one cannot say which produces which or which waits upon which. Qingmu uses a homely analogy: “Just as a cow’s two horns emerge at the same time and are not causes of one another.” A cow’s two horns grow out together; the left horn does not cause the right, nor the right the left.

The exact scope of this analogy must be seen. It does not say that a cow’s horns do not exist, but that simultaneous appearance by itself contains no relation of mutual causation. People often mistake events happening together for events being causally related; this cuts off that step.

Once the Three Routes Are Exhausted, What Is Left to Say?

After all three positions have been tried, the verse concludes: “If beginning, end, and simultaneous occurrence are all impossible,” then “why continue conceptual proliferation and assert that birth, aging, and death exist?”

Qingmu presents this conclusion in two parts. The first is the result: because reflection on birth, aging, and death reveals a fault in all three, they are “unborn and ultimately empty.” The second is a rebuke, and its target is exact—he does not rebuke speaking of birth, aging, and death, but “asserting determinate marks.”

The distinction here must be very fine. The chapter does not say that no one is born or grows old and dies in the world. The sūtra speaks of beings and saṃsāra, and Qingmu likewise speaks of beings in saṃsāra. What is rebuked is the determinate mark: the view that takes birth as one thing standing on its own and aging-and-death as another thing standing on its own, then asks which of these two comes first. The failure of all three positions shows precisely that the two were never that kind of thing.

The words “conceptual proliferation” fall heavily. Once every position has been tried, to continue discussing their priority is no longer to say anything; it merely spins.

Not Only Saṃsāra: All Dharmas Are Like This

If one imagined at this point that the chapter treated only saṃsāra, its final two verses open the claim outward.

The verse gives a list: “All causes and fruits, marks and what bears a mark,” then “experience and experiencer and every dharma whatsoever.” It says that “not only in saṃsāra can the prior limit not be found,” and concludes: “The prior limit of all such dharmas likewise does not exist.”

Cause and fruit—which comes first? Mark and what bears a mark, the marking and marked—which comes first? Experience and experiencer, the experienced dharma and one who undergoes it—which comes first? Every pair can be subjected to the three routes in this chapter, and every pair yields the same result: before fails, after fails, and simultaneity fails.

Qingmu makes this layer explicit at the end: these “all lack a prior limit; it is not only saṃsāra that lacks one.” The discussion spoke only of saṃsāra up to this point “in order to disclose the teaching briefly.”

Saṃsāra is only an example—one that everyone experiences personally and can enter most easily. The example is given so that one learns the method there and then applies it elsewhere. This also answers the opening question. The sūtra speaks of beings and saṃsāra at the worldly level; when it says that the prior limit cannot be found, it says that the thing spoken of as existing has no beginning able to stand. The two statements do not contradict each other: one speaks of the event, the other of what lies beneath the event.

Comparative Readings: Alternative Meanings in the Transmitted Lines

The Bhāviveka-line Prajñāpradīpa Commentary adds another layer: before the noble path’s counteraction arises, birth, aging, and death continue without interruption and in turn serve as causes, while their first arising is indeterminate. Therefore they are said to have neither limit nor boundary—yet this is spoken in conventional truth, not to establish a new limitless entity in ultimate truth. This addition is useful because it blocks one reading: turning “beginningless” around and grasping it as a new thing.

The Sthiramati-line Mahāyāna Madhyamaka Commentary applies each of the three routes to cause and fruit and to mark and what bears a mark. If fruit exists first and cause afterward, fruit is causeless; if cause exists first while fruit does not yet exist, cause and fruit do not cohere; if both dharmas exist simultaneously, the so-called nature of cause and fruit lacks substance. The same explanation applies to mark and what bears a mark. It does exactly what the final two verses invite—move the same examination to another pair and run it again.

Each line adds within its proper scope, and neither alters the text of Kumārajīva’s verses or Qingmu’s extended commentary.

Carried Forward: Jizang’s Mirror

The foregoing is the meaning of the chapter itself. What follows uses the eye of the Sui-Tang Three Treatise lineage as a sidewise illumination—a mirror is not the treatise, but another way of reading the same verses.

In his Commentary on the Treatise on the Middle, Jizang opens four intentions in the word “beginningless.” First, it does not mean that saṃsāra is so long that its beginning is difficult to know; the beginning of saṃsāra cannot be found at all, so saṃsāra has no root. Second, beginninglessness relinquishes both sides: to say “beginningless” merely distinguishes the absence of a beginning and does not establish another thing called beginninglessness. Thus none of the statements involving beginning and beginninglessness functions, enabling awakening to and entry into true reality. Third, no beginning means no end and no middle, just as a tree without roots also has no branches and leaves. This reveals that the six destinies were never born and are not now extinguished, that there is neither saṃsāra nor nirvāṇa. Fourth, for pedagogical guidance one may still say that saṃsāra is long, prompting followers of both vehicles to become disenchanted, diligently cultivate contemplation, and sever the afflictions.

He also maps the same term onto the refutation of four views. Saying “beginningless” refutes the view of a beginning; since it is called beginningless because no beginning exists, not because a beginningless entity exists, it refutes the view of beginninglessness; since beginning is absent and beginninglessness likewise absent, there is no end, refuting the view of an end; since both divisions are absent, there is no passage through a middle, refuting the view of a middle. Once the four views are refuted, one is enabled to awaken to and enter true reality.

As for the simultaneous route, he divides causelessness into two layers. The first is rigorous exclusion: if death exists at birth, birth is absent at death, so there are fundamentally no two dharmas able to cause one another. The second is provisional allowance: even if birth and death are conceded to coexist simultaneously, they remain like a cow’s two horns and do not cause one another.

This mirror connects the chapter to the Three Treatise lineage’s interpretive structure of refuting error and disclosing correctness. The levels of four intentions, four views, and two forms of causelessness are Jizang’s pedagogical expansions, not the original words of Nāgārjuna’s verses or Qingmu’s extended commentary. The readings are recorded side by side without adjudication, each returned to its own place.