The Buddhist Sengzhao’s Roots in Daoism: Ex Contradictione Nihil

Sengzhao (c.374–414) was a Chinese Neo-Daoist who converted to Mahāyāna Buddhism, and few people doubt his influence on Chinese Buddhist philosophy. In this article, provided his Neo-Daoism (*xuanxue*) and Madhyamaka Buddhism, I will present how Sengzhao featured a symbolic meaning of ‘void’ (*śūnya*) as rooted originally in Daoism. The Daoist contradictions, in particular between ‘being’ (*you*) and ‘nothing non-being’ (*wu*), are essential to the development of his doctrine of ‘no ultimate void’ (不真空論, *Buzhenkonglun*). To understand what Sengzhao meant by ‘void’, which is in denial about the ultimate reality, I broach a notion of *nihil* (‘nothing’ but also ‘no value’) that bears on his discursive practice. In this light, I formulate a Daoist argument for contradictions and ECN (*ex contradictione nihil* – nothing follows from contradictions) from Laozi’s *Daodejing*. Furthermore, I elaborate on Sengzhao’s defence of ECN in his *Buzhenkonglun*. Reconstructing his negative approach to contradictions within the scope of the four-valued expressions (*catuṣkoṭi*) in the Madhyamaka tradition from Nāgārjuna, I consider a likely objection that a fifth value such as the ineffable may be inferred as void. Instead of subsuming the ineffable value under his discourse, I finally endorse Sengzhao’s purpose of linguistic and conventional approximation of the ultimate reality as silence. As such, I conclude the significance of void in Sengzhao’s denials via contradictions (ECN), i.e. an early philosophical peak of Chinese Buddhism from Daoism.