Europeans have generally interpreted Nagarjuna's MU/amadhyamakakarika from the perspective of Aristotle's law of excluded middle. Indian religions tend to describe the world as full of suffering, and prescribe spiritual discipline as the way to escape from it; this is why Indian religious teachings heavily rely on negation. Examples in the Buddhist tradition include the eighth verse of the MU/amadhyamakakarika, which states, "Everything is real, not real, both real and not real, neither real nor not real; this is the teaching of the Buddha"; the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception(Bhavagra); and the passage in the Diamond Sutra which reads, ''No notion of self; no notion of person; no notion of sentient being; no notion of life span." Such negations are typical of Indian religious discourse, and indicate that negation of the world is its fundamental approach to spiritual cultivation; whether or not this is correct is another issue altogether.

I'm not a scholar with a penchant for splitting hairs; my main concern is with presenting a correct understanding of Buddhist doctrine, so that it can serve as a reliable guide to actual practice. For example, when Buddhism first came to China, the Daoist term wu~ was used to translate the Sanskrit term siinyatii, yet such borrowing has caused a lot of confusion that still needs to be corrected, lest one's practice come to naught.

Thus the primary motivation for this translation is to serve as a guide to Buddhist practice.