[C. Meera]:

Shunya is the Sanskrit term translated in English as Void & also as Nothingness. The Madhyamika School of Buddhism that shunya is the transcendent & indefinable & immanent in all beings. Scholars speaking for shunya say that it is not nothingness since even the illusory structure can't be sustained in nothingness. Void is a metaphysical reality. Nagarjuna, the scholar, logician of the said school says Shunyata is a positive principle. Kumarajiva, commenting on Nagarjuna mentions that it is on account of Shunyata that everything becomes possible (Prajnaparamita). From the Madhyamika point the reality is Shunya (Shunyam Tattvam).

Kabir the weaver poet & a secular person observes in his doha (poems), "they call Him emptiness, who is the Truth of truths, in whom all truths are stored', : Tagore's translation.

In another philosophical school called Tantra, it is said, "The auspicious Supreme Shiva desired to make manifest the universe which .....shines forth as the one Chit as the very Void detached from maya." (pratyabhijna-Hridaya)

Meera