Sanlun represents a particularly rigorous and self-conscious form of Chinese Madhyamaka, marked first of all by its clear textual and institutional identity. It is explicitly organized around three core treatises attributed to Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva, and it develops as a relatively systematic school with lineages and formal transmission. Other Chinese currents that draw on Madhyamaka—such as those found within broader traditions like Tiantai, Huayan, or Chan—tend not to define themselves so narrowly by these texts, and often function more as diffuse philosophical tendencies than as sharply bounded schools. This gives Sanlun a distinctive profile: it stands as a focused Madhyamaka tradition rather than a general synthesis in which emptiness is one doctrine among many.

Doctrinally, Sanlun is characterized by a strict adherence to the radical emptiness taught by Nāgārjuna. All dharmas, including nirvāṇa, Buddha‑nature, and even “emptiness” itself, are treated as empty of any inherent nature. The school develops the two truths—conventional and ultimate—in a way that is both systematic and uncompromising: the distinction is used as a pedagogical tool, yet even this distinction is ultimately seen as empty and not to be reified. Later Chinese interpretations influenced by Madhyamaka sometimes give the ultimate side a more affirmative coloring, allowing Buddha‑nature or “true mind” to appear as a more stable ground, whereas Sanlun consistently resists turning such notions into a positive ontological principle.

Methodologically, Sanlun leans heavily into deconstructive dialectic. Its hallmark is the relentless use of refutation (破, pò), often expressed through the style of “eight negations” such as no arising and no ceasing, in order to undermine every fixed view. This polemical edge extends to critiques of other Buddhist and non‑Buddhist schools, especially where substantialist understandings of dharmas are detected. Other Chinese Madhyamaka‑influenced traditions, while not abandoning emptiness, tend to emphasize constructive syntheses—cosmological visions, doctrinal classifications, or integrative schemes—where emptiness is harmonized with broader positive teachings rather than kept as a constant solvent of all positions.

In terms of spiritual orientation, Sanlun places liberation in the thorough realization of non‑grasping insight into emptiness, to the point that even “correct view” must eventually be relinquished. Later Chinese traditions shaped by Madhyamaka often balance this critical insight with more affirmative practices: faith, devotion, contemplation of Buddha‑nature, or elaborate meditative and ritual paths. Sanlun thus stands out as a kind of asceticism of thought, continually cutting through conceptual attachments, while other Chinese Madhyamaka expressions more readily weave emptiness into rich, synthetic visions of the path and its goal.