Nagarjuna

150 - 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher, the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and arguably the most influential Indian Buddhist thinker after the Gautama Buddha himself.

His writings were the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school, which was transmitted to China under the name of the Three Treatise (Sanlun) School. He is credited with developing the philosophy of the Prajnaparamita sutras, and was closely associated with the Buddhist university of Nalanda.

History

Very few details on the life of Nāgārjuna are known, although many legends exist. He may have been born in South India, probably near the town of Nagarjunakonda(నాగార్జునకొండ) in present day Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. According to traditional biographers and historians such as Kumarajiva (鳩摩羅什), he was born into a Brahmin family, but later converted to Buddhism. This may be the reason he was one of the earliest significant Buddhist thinkers to write in Sanskrit rather than Pāli or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit.

Writings

There exist a number of influential texts attributed to Nāgārjuna, although most were probably written by later authors. The only work that all scholars agree is Nagarjuna's is the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way), which contains the essentials of his thought in twenty-seven short chapters. According to Lindtner the works definitely written by Nagarjuna are:

• Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way)
• śūnyatāsaptati (Seventy Verses on Emptiness)
• Vigrahavyāvartanī (The End of Disputes)
• Vaidalyaprakaraṇa (Pulverizing the Categories)
• Vyavahārasiddhi (Proof of Convention)
• Yuktiṣāṣṭika (Sixty Verses on Reasoning)
• Catuḥstava (Hymn to the Absolute Reality)
• Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland)
• Pratītyasamutpādahṝdayakārika (Constituents of Dependent Arising)
• Sūtrasamuccaya
• Bodhicittavivaraṇa (Exposition of the Enlightened Mind)
• Suhṛllekha (To a Good Friend)
• Bodhisaṃbhāra (Requisites of Enlightenment)

There are other works attributed to Nāgārjuna, some of which may be genuine and some not. In particular, several important works of esoteric Buddhism (most notably the Pañcakrama or "Five Stages") are attributed to Nāgārjuna and his disciples. Contemporary research suggests that these works are datable to a significantly later period in Buddhist history (late eighth or early ninth century), but the tradition of which they are a part maintains that they are the work of the Madhyamaka Nāgārjuna and his school. Traditional historians (for example, the 17th century Tibetan Tāranātha), aware of the chronological difficulties involved, account for the anachronism via a variety of theories, such as the propagation of later writings via mystical revelation. A useful summary of this tradition, its literature, and historiography may be found in Wedemeyer 2006.

Lindtner considers that the Māhaprajñāparamitopadeśa, a huge commentary on the Large Prajñāparamita not to be a genuine work of Nāgārjuna. This is only extant in a Chinese translation by Kumarajiva. There is much discussion as to whether this is a work of Nāgārjuna, with some original comments by Kumarajiva, or an original work by Kumarajiva based on the philosophy of Nāgārjuna.

Philosophy

Nāgārjuna's primary contribution to Buddhist philosophy is in the development of the concept of śūnyatā, or "emptiness," which brings together other key Buddhist doctrines, particularly anatta and pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination). For Nāgārjuna, it is not merely sentient beings that are empty of ātman; all phenomena are without any svabhāva, literally "own-nature" or "self-nature", and thus without any underlying essence; they are empty of being. This is so because they are arisen dependently: not by their own power, but by depending on conditions leading to their coming into existence, as opposed to being. Nāgārjuna was also instrumental in the development of the two-truths doctrine, which claims that there are two levels of truth in Buddhist teaching, one which is directly true, and one which is only conventionally or instrumentally true, commonly called upāya in later Mahāyāna writings. Nāgārjuna drew on an early version of this doctrine found in the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta, which distinguishes nītārtha (clear) and neyārtha (obscure) terms -

By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.

Nāgārjuna differentiates between saṃvṛti (conventional) and paramārtha (ultimately true) teachings, but he seldom declares any to fall in this latter category; for him, even śūnyatā is śūnya--even emptiness is empty. For him, ultimately,

The designable is ceased when the range of thought is ceased,

For phenomenality is like nirvana, unarisen and unstopped.