[Buddha-l] As Swami goes, so goes the nation? (Dan Lusthaus and Richard P. Hayes)

[Dan Lusthaus]

While Richard is in a generous Skt-translation mood, perhaps he (or any 
other skt-wallah lurking on the list) might like to take a crack at the 
following karika from Nagarjuna's Mula-madhyamaka-karika. This is k.9 from 
ch. 25 (the Nirvana ch.), and it came up during the aforementioned 
Madhyamaka Symposium.

ya ājavaṃjavībhāva upādāya pratītya vā |
so 'pratītyānupādāya nirvāṇam upadiśyate || MMK_25,09

The Tib. rendering hid all the tensions and difficulties, but the Skt 
strikes me -- based on the relation between the lines -- to be quite 
challenging. Some people thought this verse was no big problem, but could 
only offer gloss explanations, not translations. Others simply refused to 
try to translate it (one read it , mulled it over for a few moments and 
said: "Oh, please! I haven't had my morning coffee yet!). So, hopefully 
Richard has had his and would be willing to give us a rendering -- as close 
to the "logical" structure of the original as possible -- ya X so non-X --  
with due justice to the terms upādāya, pratītya and [the easiest?] 
upadiśyate.

Part of the reason I ask is that more than one candidate for the "climactic" 
verse of MMK was proposed. I nominated this one, and dubbed it the first 
Buddhist koan.

Thank you.

Dan