The paper reconstructs some prominent stages of the development of the "non-self" and the "two truths" doctrines in Buddhist philosophy, from original formulations of mainstream buddhism, to the conclusions reached by Nāgārjuna, the founder of mahāyāna school of Madhyamaka. During this concise reconstructions, some passages of Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamikakārikās, which are crucial to clarify his (controversial) epistemological conception, will prove themselves similar, regarding the structuring and the development of the discourse, to the first part of Milinda Pañha, a para-canonical dialogue which takes an apofatic approach to deal with the topic of the 'ultimate truth'. This formal parallelism between the passages of the two texts suggests the possibility of a 'substantial' correspondence between the nagarjunian conception and that of Milinda Pañha with regard to the 'ultimately true'.
Non-self; conventional truth; ultimate truth; emptiness; Nāgārjuna; Milinda Pañha