 In any case, it is fair to say that the Kyoto School thinkers generally consider the purest sources for the idea of absolute nothingness to lie in the traditions of the East. Hisamatsu went so far as to speak of absolute nothingness as “oriental nothingness” (Hisamatsu 1960); though it is important to bear in mind that his claim is that this idea was first clearly discovered in the traditions of East. Absolute nothingness is by no means only relevant to Eastern cultures, anymore than in 1500 CE the earth was only round in the West. Moreover, if the idea of absolute nothingness “came to awareness in the spirituality of the East,” as Nishitani says, the philosophy of absolute nothingness is generally considered to be the Kyoto School’s own contribution to the contemporary world of thought opened up by the meeting of East and West.