This paper is a preliminary study of Bhāviveka’s Svātantrika-Mādhyamika justifications for taking non-existent things as the subject (pakṣa) of an inference, based on his Dacheng Zhangzhen Lun (*Karatalaratna). Bhāviveka’s treatment of inference is similar to that of Dignāga in that the subject is required to be existent. Bhāviveka also holds that, in a conventional sense, words refer to universals and to the existent entities that possess them, while the two are cognised together. However, in his inference for the unreality of unconditioned things, he likens these things (the subject) to a sky-flower (the example, dṛṣṭānta) that never arises and is unreal even conventionally. This paper first demonstrates how taking unconditioned things (being non-existent) as the subject of an inference can be problematic for Bhāviveka. Then, it discusses Bhāviveka’s attempts to address the problems by subsuming the unconditioned things under the domain of conventional reality. The paper concludes that these attempts show his flexibility in terms of what is taken as conventionally real.

中文翻译：

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薄伽梵歌《大成章真论》中不存在的事物作为推论的主体

这篇论文是对 Bhāviveka 的 Svātantrika-Mādhyamika 以不存在的事物作为推理主体（pakṣa）的理由的初步研究，基于他的大成章真论（*Karatalaratna）。Bhāviveka 对推理的处理与 Dignāga 的处理类似，因为要求主体存在。Bhāviveka 还认为，在传统意义上，词指的是普遍性和拥有它们的存在实体，而两者是一起认知的。然而，在他对无条件事物的非真实性的推论中，他将这些事物（主体）比作一朵天花（例如，dṛṣṭānta），它从不生起，甚至在传统上也是不真实的。这篇论文首先展示了将无条件事物（不存在）作为推理的主题对 Bhāviveka 来说可能是有问题的。然后，它讨论了 Bhāviveka 试图通过将无条件事物归入常规现实的领域来解决这些问题。该论文得出的结论是，这些尝试显示了他在传统意义上的真实性方面的灵活性。