Nishitani Keiji was the first to introduce, through the task of overcoming nihilism, the modern concept of "history" into the intellectual context of emptiness or the nothing of Mahāyāna. The consequence of this was the opening of a new line of development within the thinking of emptiness itself, and at the same time a presentation of Mahāyāna emptiness in a manner more easily comprehensible for people around the world. We can regard Nishitani's philosophy as having opened up a more flexible and elastic relationship between Buddhism and philosophy.