Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (IX) — by Nagarjuna

IX.1. Certain people say: Prior to seeing hearing, and other sensory faculties together with sensation and other mental phenomena
Is that to which they belong.

IX.2. They reason: How will there be seeing, etc. of someone who does not exist?
Therefore, there exists a definite (vyavasthita) entity before that seeing, etc..

IX.3. But that definite entity is previous to sight, hearing, etc., and sensation, etc —
How can that entity be known?

IX.4. And if that entity is determined without sight and other sensory faculties,
Then, undoubtedly, those sensory faculties will exist without that entity.

IX.5. Someone becomes manifest by something; something is manifest by someone.
How would someone exist without something? How would something exist without someone?

IX.6. The opponent admits:
Someone does not exist previous to (purva) sight and all the other faculties together.
Rather, he is manifested by any one of them: sight, etc., at any one time.

IX.7. Nargarjuna answers:
But if nothing exists previous to sight and all the other faculties together,
How could that being exist individually before sight, etc.?

IX.8. Further, if that being were the “seer,” that being were the “hearer,” that being were the one who senses,
Then one being would exist previous to each. Therefore, this hypothesis is not logically justified.

IX.9-10. On the other hand, if the “seer” were someone else, or the “hearer” were someone else, or the one who senses were someone else,
Then there would be a “hearers when there was already a “seer,” and that would mean a multiplicity of “selves” (atma).

IX.11. When he to whom seeing, hearing, etc., and feeling, etc. belong does not exist,
Then certainly they do not exist.

IX.12. For him who does not exist previous to, at the same time, or after seeing, etc.
The conception “He exists,” “He does not exist,” is dissipated.

Source: Orientalia