Prasangika

Prasangika Madhyamaka, or simply Prasangika, is a school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy and one of the two main sub-schools of Madhyamaka, the other being Svatantrika. Prasangika emphasizes the doctrine of emptiness (shunyata) and dependent origination, arguing that all phenomena lack intrinsic existence and arise only through dependent designation.

Its chief method is prasanga, a form of refutation that proceeds not by positing positive characteristics but by tracing the consequences of holding a thesis to increasingly untenable conclusions. By drawing out the logical implications of arguments about existing things, Prasangikas show that conventional designations presuppose no ultimate essence. Therefore, whereas conventional truth remains valid for ordinary discourse, the ultimate truth is the absence of inherent nature in all phenomena.

Historically, the Prasangika view was developed and systematized within Indian Madhyamaka by Chandrakirti in the 7th–8th centuries, building on Nagarjuna’s foundational work. In the Tibetan scholastic tradition, Prasangika became especially associated with the Gelug school through Tsongkhapa, while its ideas influence other lineages as well.

Key contrasts with Svatantrika center on the status of pramanas and the acceptance of a positive basis for inference; Svatantrikas may use autonomous valid reasons, whereas Prasangikas deny any inherently existing foundation for such reasons. The Prasangika program thus aims to safeguard the middle way between nihilism and essentialism and remains central to Buddhist practice and epistemology, especially in the context of meditation on emptiness.