Shunyata — emptiness — is the claim that nothing possesses independent, self-established existence, including emptiness itself. Nagarjuna developed it as a middle path between saying things exist absolutely and saying they do not exist at all, using a method of showing that every alternative collapses. It is not nihilism and Mahayana texts are emphatic on the point: things function, precisely because they are empty of fixed essence and therefore able to arise dependently.