 The point that Śāntarakṣita is attempting to make here is that no phenomena, including those which his philosophical rivals have claimed to have an inherently existent essence or nature, in fact do have such a nature. The reason they cannot have such a nature, according to the argument, is that they have neither a truly singular nature (ekasvabhāva), nor a truly manifold nature (anekasvabhāva), the two being exhaustive of all possibilities for entities that have a real nature.