 It is the understanding of svabhāva as a primary existent or substance that constitutes the main target of Nāgārjuna’s philosophical criticism. Before we have a closer look at the form this criticism takes we must briefly mention the final ontological understanding of svabhāva, namely svabhāva as absolute reality. If svabhāva is regarded as the true nature of phenomena it is sometimes characterized as not brought about by any causal process, as unchangeable and as independent of any other object. The interesting problem arising here is that for the Madhyamaka the true nature of phenomena is emptiness, i.e. the absence of svabhāva understood as substance, and that svabhāva understood in this way is also characterized as not brought about by any causal process, as unchangeable and as independent of any other object. So it seems to be the case that something that has all these properties must exist (since there is svabhāva which is the true nature of phenomena) and must not exist (since, the Madhyamaka argues, svabhāva understood as substance does not exist). In the Buddhist commentarial literature we find several different ways of dissolving this contradiction (for more discussion see Westerhoff 2009: 40–46). One way of tackling the issue is by differentiating two senses in which svabhāva can be “independent of any other object”. This can be understood as the familiar understanding of substance as a primary existent noted above. But it can also be understood as meaning “not dependent on any specific phenomenon”. We could then argue that emptiness as the true nature of phenomena is to be understood as svabhāva and thus as independent only in the second, but not in the first sense. This is due to the fact that svabhāva in the sense rejected by Madhyamaka thinkers is regarded as a superimposition mistakenly projected onto objects which in fact lack it (see below). Thus emptiness only exists as long as svabhāva understood as substance is mistakenly projected onto some object or other. Emptiness does not depend on any specific phenomenon to exist, but there has to be some phenomenon mistakenly conceived for emptiness to exist. Emptiness is not some kind of primordial reality ante rem but a corrective to a mistaken view of how the world exists. This account boils down to saying that there really are only two ways of understanding svabhāva: as essence and as substance. What was earlier called svabhāva as absolute reality is only a specific form of svabhāva understood as essence: in the same way as heat is an essential quality of fire emptiness is an essential quality of all phenomena. Things could not be the things they are without being empty.