Nagarjuna

• 1. India In The Second Century

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  India in the first and second centuries CE was politically divided into various states, including the Kushan Empire and the Satavahana Kingdom. At this point in Buddhist history, the Buddhist community was already divided into various Buddhist schools and had spread throughout India. Mahāyāna ideas were held by a minority of Buddhists in India at the time. Joseph Walser writes that Mahāyāna before the fifth century was largely invisible and probably existed only as a minority and largely unrecognized movement within the fold of nikāya Buddhism. By the second century, early Mahāyāna Sūtras such as the Aśtasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā were already circulating among certain Mahāyāna circles. This fragmented landscape set the stage for Nāgārjuna's emergence as a philosopher who would defend the nascent Mahāyāna movement against established orthodoxies.

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• 2. Conflicting Historical Accounts

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  Very little is reliably known of the life of Nāgārjuna and modern historians do not agree on a specific date or place for him. Some scholars such as Joseph Walser argue that Nāgārjuna was an advisor to a king of the Sātavāhana dynasty which ruled the Deccan Plateau in the second century. Archaeological evidence at Amarāvatī indicates that if this is true, the king may have been Yajña Śrī Śātakarņi around the second half of the 2nd century. On the basis of this association, Nāgārjuna is conventionally placed at around 150, 250 CE. The earliest surviving accounts were written in Chinese and Tibetan centuries after his death and are mostly hagiographical accounts that are historically unverifiable. Traditional religious hagiographies credit Nāgārjuna with being associated with the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras as well as with having revealed these scriptures to the world after they had remained hidden for some time. Some sources say he retrieved the sutras from the land of the nāgas. Kumārajīva's biography depicts Nāgārjuna making an elixir of invisibility, and Buton Rinchen Drub, Taranatha and Xuanzang all state that he could turn rocks into gold.

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• 3. Authenticity Of Texts

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  There exist a number of influential texts attributed to Nāgārjuna; however, as there are many pseudepigrapha attributed to him, lively controversy exists over which are his authentic works. Christian Lindtner divides the various attributed works as correctly attributed, wrongly attributed to him, and those which may or may not be genuine. Scholars such as Jan Westerhoff rely on six works: MMK, Vigrahavyāvartanī, Śūnyatāsaptati, Ratnāvalī, Pratītyasamutpādahŗdaya, and Sūtrasamuccaya, all of which expound a single, coherent philosophical system. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is Nāgārjuna's best-known work and available in three Sanskrit manuscripts and numerous translations. Other scholars have challenged and argued against some of the above works being Nagarjuna's. David F. Burton notes that Christian Lindtner is rather liberal with his list of works and that other scholars have called some of these into question. Paul Williams argued convincingly that certain texts must be later works. The Dà zhìdù lùn has been questioned as a genuine work of Nāgārjuna by various scholars including Lamotte.

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• 4. Philosophy Of Emptiness

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  Nāgārjuna's major thematic focus is the concept of śūnyatā translated into English as emptiness which brings together other key Buddhist doctrines, particularly anātman not-self and pratītyasamutpāda dependent origination, to refute the metaphysics of some of his contemporaries. For Nāgārjuna, as for the Buddha in the early texts, it is not merely sentient beings that are selfless or non-substantial; all phenomena dhammas are without any svabhāva literally own-being, self-nature, or inherent existence and thus without any underlying essence. They are empty of being independently existent; thus the heterodox theories of svabhāva circulating at the time were refuted on the basis of the doctrines of early Buddhism. Chapter 24 verse 14 of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā provides one of Nāgārjuna's most famous quotations on emptiness and co-arising. All things exist, do not exist, both exist and do not exist, neither exist nor do not exist. To say that all things are empty is to deny any kind of ontological foundation. Understanding the nature of the emptiness of phenomena is simply a means to an end, which is nirvana.

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• 5. Two Truths Doctrine

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  Nāgārjuna was also instrumental in the development of the two truths doctrine, which claims that there are two levels of truth in Buddhist teaching, the ultimate truth paramārtha satya and the conventional or superficial truth sañvrttisatya. The ultimate truth to Nāgārjuna is the truth that everything is empty of essence, this includes emptiness itself the emptiness of emptiness. While some have interpreted this by positing Nāgārjuna as a neo-Kantian and thus making ultimate truth a metaphysical noumenon or an ineffable ultimate that transcends the capacities of discursive reason, others such as Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield have argued that Nāgārjuna's view is that the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth. Suppose that we take a conventional entity, such as a table. We analyze it to demonstrate its emptiness, finding that there is no table apart from its parts. So we conclude that it is empty. But now let us analyze that emptiness. What do we find? Nothing at all but the table's lack of inherent existence. To see the table as empty is to see the table as conventional, as dependent.

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• 6. Comparative Philosophy

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  His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā Root Verses on Madhyamaka MMK is the most important text on the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness. The MMK inspired a large number of commentaries in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean and Japanese and continues to be studied today. The version linked to the Kaccānagotta Sutta distinguishes definitive meaning nītārtha from interpretable meaning neyārtha. Nāgārjuna does not make reference to everything when he quotes the agamic text in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. The distinction between effects and conditions is controversial. In Nāgārjuna's approach, cause means an event or state that has power to bring an effect. Conditions refer to proliferating causes that bring a further event, state or process; without a metaphysical commitment to an occult connection between explaining and explanans. Things conventional exist and are ultimately nonexistent to rest in the Middle Way in both causal existence and nonexistence as casual emptiness within the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā doctrine. Although seeming strange to Westerners, this is seen as an attack on a reified view of causality.

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