 When Tsongkhapa arrived in Central Tibet, the pressing philosophical issue of the day was Dolpopa's (Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan) (1292–1361) Great Middle Way (Tib. dBu ma chen po, Sk. *Mahā-madhayamaka) philosophy. It propounded a hermeneutics based on the principle that a Buddha will always tell you clearly what he means. Based on a wide array of sources, and without making a clear distinction between tantric and non-tantric works, the central tenet of the Great Middle Way is that an absolute, pure, transcendental mind endowed with all good qualities exists radically other than the ordinary world of appearance. It is the archetypical Tibetan Buddhist gzhan stong (pronounced shentong, “emptiness of other”) philosophy.