Meditation on Emptiness, 626; Jam-yang-shay-ba's Great Exposition of Tenets, 59; Annotations, page 132.
It follows that space, also, is name-only and lacks inherent existence because its object of negation, something that is an obstructive form, is exhausted as name only.132kha1
Qualm: Obstructive form is inherently existent.
Reply: How could form be inherently established? [That is,] it follows that it is not inherently established because the elements [that forms are composed of] are not inherently established. 132kha2
Name-only itself also lacks inherent establishment, because name possessors lack inherent establishment.
Without the causes (1) a conceptual consciousness which is an improper mental application and (2) imputation by a conceptual consciousness, as in the case of imputing a snake to a rope132kha4--you will not find the existence of the thorough afflictions, desire and so forth. If this is so, then the existence [of those afflictions] is exhausted as only dependently existent and lack establishment by way of their own entity. Who with intelligence would hold that if something were established by way of its own entity it would be imputed by thought, this being contradictory with being an object established as its own reality. This is because imputed by thought and established by way of own entity are contradictory.Aryadeva's Four Hundred132kha3 says:
Without [imputation by] thought [like the imputation of a snake to a rope there is no [finding of] the existence of desire and so forth. If so, who with intelligence would maintain that a real object is [produced dependent on] thought? [For, being imputed by though and existing as its own reality are concradictory.]
Chandrakirti's Commentary on (Aryadeva's) ``Four Hundred''132kha5 says:
Undoubtedly, those which exist only through the existence of thought and those which do not exist when there is no thought are to be ascertained as not existing by way of their own entities, like a snake imputed to a coiled rope.[60]
If it is the case that we can assert something exists if a conceptual consciousness imputing it exists, and yet cannot find the existence of it if a conceptual consciousness imputing it does not exist, then it is necessarily the case that that thing is not established by way of its own entity. For example, it is like imputing a snake on a rope. Desire and so forth are also like that.
That also should be understood as follows:
Dzong-ka-ba's text also says:The rope's speckled color and mode of coiling are similar to those of a snake, and when the [rope] is perceived in a dim area the thought arises, `this is a snake,' with respect to the rope.132kha6
As for the rope, at the time [when it appeared to be a snake] the collection and parts of the rope are not even in the slightest way positable as an illustration of the snake. Hence, that snake is merely imputed by conceptuality.
In the same way, when the thought ``I" arises in dependence on the aggregates, nothing in terms of the aggregates-- neither the collection of the continuum of the earlier and later moments, nor the collection of the parts at one time, nor the parts of [the aggregates]--is even in the slightest way positable as the illustration of ``I".132kha7
Because of this, and132kha8 because there is also not something that could be taken as illustrating that; [the self] that is a different entity from the parts of the aggregates or the whole. Therefore, the I is merely posited by conceptuality in dependence on the aggregates and is not established by way of its own entity. [133]