Nāgārjuna one of the most important philosophers of Buddhism and the founder of the Mādhyamika school. Hardly any reliable dates for his life (2d/3d century) are known. Numerous works are attributed to him that were probably written by various other authors. His most important authentic work is the (Mūla) Mādhyamaka-kārikā (Memorial Verses on the Middle Teaching). It contains the essentials of Nāgārjuna’s thought in twenty-seven short chapters (400 verses). Nāgārjuna is also considered the author of the Mahāyāna-vimshaka (Twenty Songs on the Mahāyāna) and of the Dvādashadvāra-shāstra (Treatise of the Twelve Gates). According to tradition, he is also the author of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-shastra, which is only extant in Chinese translation and probably originated in China. In the Zen tradition, he is considered the 14th patriarch of the Indian lineage.
Nāgārjuna’s major accomplishment was his systematization and deepening of the teaching presented in the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra. He developed a special dialectic based on a reductio ad absurdum of opponents’ positions. Starting from the premise that each thing exists only in virtue of its opposite, he shows that all things are only relative and without essence (svabhāvatā), i.e. are empty (shūnyatā). Nāgārjuna’s methodological approach of rejecting all opposites is the basis of the Middle Way of the Mādhyamikas; it is directly connected with the teaching of the Buddha. This middle position is clearly expressed in the “eight negations”: no elimination (nirodha), no production, no destruction, no eternity, no unity, no manifoldness, no arriving, no departing.
Nāgārjuna’s name comes from – nāga, “serpent” and arjuna, a type of tree. According to tradition, Nāgārjuna was born under a tree and was instructed in the occult sciences by the nāgas in their palace under the sea. There, in some caves, he is said to have discovered the Buddhist scriptures.
Nāgārjuna is the first in the history of Buddism to have constructed a philosophical “system.” With this system he sought to prove the thesis of the unreality of the external world, a point that is presented in the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra as an experiential fact. In this way he laid the foundation for the Mādhyamaka; however, his teaching also exercised considerable influence on the development of other Buddhist schools. Nāgārjuna selected as his point of departure the law of conditioned arising (pratītya-samutāpada), which for him constitutes the basic nature of the world. He sees it as unreal and empty, since through it no arising, passing away, eternity, mutability, etc. are possible.
Nāgārjuna attempts to show the emptiness of the world through the relativity of opposites. Opposites are mutually dependent; one member of a pair of opposites can only arise through the other. From this he draws the conclusion that such entities cannot really exist, since the existence of one presupposes the existence of the other.
A central notion in his proofs is that of nones sentiality: the things of the phenomenal world possess no essence. An essence is eternal, immutable, and independent of all other essences; but the things of the world of appearance arise and pass away they are empty.
Thus for Nāgārjuna emptiness means the absence of an essence in things but not their nonexistence as phenomena. Thus it is false to say that things exist or that they do not exist. The truth lies in the middle, in emptiness. The world of phenomena does have a certain truth, a truth on the conventional level (samvriti-satya), but no definitive truth (paramārtha-satya). From the point of view of the conventional truth, the world and also the Buddhist teaching have their validity; from the point of view of the definitive truth, all of that does not exist since everything is only appearance. For Nāgārjuna the phenomenal world is characterized by manifoldness (prapañcha), which is the basis of all mental representations and thus creates the appearance of an external world. Absolute reality, on the other hand, is devoid of all manifoldness. Absence of manifoldness means nirvāna. In nirvāna the manifoldness of the world and the law of conditioned arising are effaced. It is by its very nature peaceful.
Nirvāna and the phenomenal world, for Nāgārjuna as well as the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra, are fundamentally identical. They are only two forms of appearance of the same reality. That which constitutes the phenomenal world in the aspect of conditionedness and contingency is, in the aspect of unconditionedness and noncontingency, nirvāna. Thus for Nāgārjuna nirvāna consists not of something that can be attained, but rather in the realization of the true nature of phenomena, in which manifoldness comes to rest.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Books on Nāgārjuna
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Buddhism / Mādhyamika / Mahāyāna / Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra / svabhāvatā / shūnyatā / Buddha / nirodha / pratītya-samutāpada / nirvāna