The Problem of the Expressibility of the Absolute in the Philosophy of Language of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism

 This paper analyzes the concept of language developed in Gelug School and discusses its specific features. The majority of the Buddhist schools state that language can express only the relative truth. As for the absolute truth, it can be cognized directly in the meditative state when any duality is absent, including the symbolic linguistic structures. However, the Gelug School accentuates the point that it is impossible to explain the techniques of realization of the absolute without the use of language. That is why the concept of language was developed in the Gelug School, according to which not all verbal structures are obstacles to enlightenment. The followers of the Gelug School subdivide concepts into two types. The first type includes the concepts that have arisen as a result of ascribin  (Tib. sgro ‘dogs) the false qualities to the objects. The second type is deprived of the false ascribing; it is formed in the process of using the special type of philosophical discourse – prasangika, which is the factor for emerging of the “middle view” (Tib. dbu lta), the proper view of things. This allows the follower of prasanga to efficiently use the verbal structures for (1) adequate cognition on the conceptual level and (2) transition towards the direct attainment of the absolute truth, which as a result leads to gaining freedom and achieving the state of Buddha.