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A statue depicting Nagarjuna at the Samye Ling Monastery, Dumfriesshire, Scotland

Acharya Nāgārjuna (Telugu: నాగార్జున; Chinese: 龍樹; Tibetan: Klu Sgrub) (c. 150 - 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher, the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and arguably the most influential Buddhist thinker after Gautama Buddha himself. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Nagarjuna could refer to: Akkineni Nagarjuna, Indian actor Nagarjun, Indian author Nagarjuna, Buddhist teacher of the 3rd century CE Nagarjuna (metallurgist), of 10th century India Category: ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1536x2048, 1401 KB) Summary Image taken by Benjamin Matthews on visit to Samye Ling Monastery, Dumfriesshire, UK, on 1 May 2004. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1536x2048, 1401 KB) Summary Image taken by Benjamin Matthews on visit to Samye Ling Monastery, Dumfriesshire, UK, on 1 May 2004. ... Kagyu Samyé Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre is a Tibetan Buddhist complex associated with the Kagyu school located at Eskdalemuir near Langholm, Scotland. ... Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries (Siorrachd Dhùn Phris in Gaelic) is a registration county of Scotland. ... This article is about the country. ... Telugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write Telugu, a Dravidian Language found in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as well as several other neighboring states. ... The Tibetan language is spoken primarily by the Tibetan people who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering South Asia, as well as by large number of Tibetan refugees all over the world. ... The Roman army consists of 400,000 men. ... Events Diophantus writes Arithmetica the first systematic treatise on algebra. ... “Era Vulgaris” redirects here. ... Madhyamaka (Also known as Åšunyavada) is a Buddhist Mahayāna tradition popularized by Nāgārjuna and AÅ›vaghoá¹£a. ... Mah is an ancient Persian god of the moon, one of the Yazatas. ... A silhouette of a Buddha statue at Ayutthaya, Thailand. ... Standing Buddha sculpture, ancient region of Gandhara, northern Pakistan, 1st century CE, Musée Guimet. ...

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. In the Jodo Shinshu branch of Buddhism, he is considered the First Patriarch. Sanlun or literally Three Treatise School was a Chinese school of Buddhism based upon the Indian Madhyamaka tradition, founded by Nagarjuna. ... Perfection of Wisdom is a translation of the Sanskrit term prajñā pāramitā (Hanzi. ... SÅ«tra (sex) (Sanskrit) or Sutta (Pāli) literally means a rope or thread that holds things together, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism (or line, rule, formula), or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. ... This article is about the ancient town and university. ... Jōdo ShinshÅ« ), also known as Shin Buddhism, was founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran Shonin. ... The Seven Patriarchs of Jodo Shinshu were seven Buddhist monks who helped to develop Pure Land Buddhism over time. ...

Little is known about the actual life of the historical Nagarjuna. The two most extensive biographies of Nagarjuna, one in Chinese and the other in Tibetan, were written many centuries after his life and incorporate much lively but historically unreliable material which sometimes reaches mythic proportions. Nagarjuna was born a "Hindu," which in his time connoted religious allegiance to the Vedas, probably into an upper-caste Brahmin family and probably in the southern Andhra region of India[1].

Iconography and hagiography

Nāgārjuna is often depicted in composite form comprising human and naga characteristics. Often the naga aspect forms a canopy crowning and shielding his human head. The nagas ( snake) are an ancient race of snake-humanoid beings first depicted in ancient Vedic Hindu mythology and oral folklore from at least 5000 B.C.E. Stories involving the Nagas are still very much a part of contemporary cultural traditions in predominantly Hindu (India, Nepal, and the island...

History

Very few details on the life of Nāgārjuna are known, although many legends exist. He was born in South India, near the town of Nagarjunakonda (నాగార్జునకొండ) in present day Nagarjuna Sagar in the Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh.^{[citation needed]} 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 classical Sanskrit rather than Pāli or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. South India is a linguistic-cultural region of India that comprises the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the two Union Territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry, whose inhabitants are collectively referred to as South Indians. ... , Nagarjunakonda (meaning Nagarjuna Hill in Telugu) is a historical Buddhist town, now an island located near Nagarjuna Sagar in Nalgonda district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. ... Nagarjuna Sagar ( నాగార్జునసాగర్) is an important Buddhist site, patronised by the rulers of the ancient Ikshvaku dynasty in the 3rd century, now a tourist attraction located 150 km from Hyderabad, (India). ... Nalgonda District is a district in Andhra Pradesh. ... “Andhra” redirects here. ... KumārajÄ«va (Chinese: 鳩摩羅什; Jiumoluoshi; also Kiu-kiu-lo, Kiu-mo-lo-che, Kiu-mo-to-tche-po, Tang-cheu) was a Kuchean Buddhist monk and scholar whose father was originally from an Indian noble family, and whose mother was a princess. ... This page deals with the Hindu varnas. ... The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect or prakrit. ... Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) is a modern linguistic category applied to some of the Mahāyāna Buddhist Sutras, such as the Perfection of Wisdom. ...

From studying his writings, it is clear that Nāgārjuna was conversant with the Nikaya school philosophies and with the emerging Mahāyāna tradition. If the most commonly accepted attribution of texts (that of Christian Lindtner) holds, then he was clearly a Māhayānist, but his philosophy holds assiduously to the canon, and while he does make explicit references to Mahāyāna texts, he is always careful to stay within the parameters set out by the canon. The term Nikāya Buddhism was invented by Mahayanist scholars[1], in order to find a more acceptable (less derogatory) term for Hinayana. ... The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ... The Tripitaka (Sanskrit त्रिपिटक, lit. ... The Tripitaka (Sanskrit त्रिपिटक, lit. ...

Writings

A statue of Nagarjuna, Kullu, India. 2005

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: Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (480x640, 101 KB) Nagarjuna This photo was taken by John Hill, in 2004. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (480x640, 101 KB) Nagarjuna This photo was taken by John Hill, in 2004. ... Kullu is the capital town of the Kullu district, in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. ... MÅ«lamadhyamakakārikā, or Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, is a key text by Nagarjuna, one of the most important Buddhist philosophers. ...

• 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 Mādhyamika 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 2007.

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. KumārajÄ«va (Chinese: 鳩摩羅什; Jiumoluoshi; also Kiu-kiu-lo, Kiu-mo-lo-che, Kiu-mo-to-tche-po, Tang-cheu) was a Kuchean Buddhist monk and scholar whose father was originally from an Indian noble family, and whose mother was a princess. ...

Philosophy

Nāgārjuna's primary contribution to Buddhist philosophy is in the further development of the concept of śūnyatā, or "emptiness," which brings together other key Buddhist doctrines, particularly anatta (no-self) 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 independent. 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 (ultimately) 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 - Buddhist philosophy is the branch of Eastern philosophy based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, a. ... Śūnyatā, शून्यता (Sanskrit), Suññatā (Pāli), stong pa nyid (Tibetan), Kuu, 空 (Japanese) qoÉ£usun (Mongolian), generally translated into English as Emptiness or Voidness, is a concept of central importance in the teaching of the Buddha, as a direct realization of Sunyata is required to achieve liberation from the cycle of... In Buddhist philosophy, anatta (Pāli) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to non-self or absence of separate self[1]. One scholar describes it as ...meaning non-selfhood, the absence of limiting self-identity in people and things. ... The doctrine of PratÄ«tyasamutpāda (Sanskrit: प्रतित्यसमुत्पादा) or Paticcasamuppāda (Pāli: पतिचसमुपादा; Tibetan: ; Chinese:緣起) Dependent Arising is an important part of Buddhist metaphysics. ... Not to be confused with sapience. ... Atman is a Sanskrit word, normally translated as soul or self (also ego). ... Svabhava is a Sanskrit term encountered in Buddhism which literally means own-being or own-becoming. It might more meaningfully be rendered as intrinsic nature, essential nature or essence. Much of Buddhism denies that such a svabhava exists within any being; but the Buddha in the Tathagatagarbha sutras (notably the... There is no universally accepted theory of what the word existence means. ... In ontology, a being is anything that can be said to be, either transcendantly or immanently. ... The two-truths doctrine is the belief that truth exists in conventional and ultimate forms, and that both forms are co-existant. ... Divisions among the early Buddhist schools came about due to doctrinal or practical differences in the views of the Buddhist Sangha following the death of the Buddha. ...

By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one reads 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 reads 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 never declares any to fall in this latter category; for him, even śūnyatā is śūnya--even emptiness is empty. For him, ultimately,

nivṛttam abhidhātavyaṃ nivṛtte cittagocare|

anutpannāniruddhā hi nirvāṇam iva dharmatā||7

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

For phenomenality is like nirvana, unarisen and unstopped.

This was famously rendered in his tetralemma with the logical propositions: X, not X, X and not X, neither X nor not X. "The designable is ceased when the range of thought is ceased" is a teaching of the Mindstream Doctrine. In the tetralemma (catuskoti) of Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (which has some similarities to the Aristotelian Laws of Thought), with reference to any two logical propositions X and Y, there are four possibilities: (both) (neither) (X but not Y) (Y but not X) It was expressed differently by Nagarjuna, who was... This article needs cleanup. ...

For more on Nāgārjuna's philosophy, see Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. MÅ«lamadhyamakakārikā, or Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, is a key text by Nagarjuna, one of the most important Buddhist philosophers. ...

English translations

Mulamadhyamakakarika

Main article: Mulamadhyamakakarika

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, or Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, is a key text by Nagarjuna, one of the most important Buddhist philosophers. ...

Other works

References

• Campbell, W. L. Ed. and trans. 1919. The Tree of Wisdom: Being the Tibetan text with English translation of Nāgārjuna's gnomic verse treatise called the Prajñādanda. Calcutta University. Reprint: Sonam T. Kazi, Gangtok. 1975.
• Forizs, Laszlo, 1998. "The Relevance of Whitehead for Contemporary Buddhist Philosophy. Pāṇini, Nāgārjuna and Whitehead."
• Hoogcarspel, E., 2005. The Central Philosophy, Basic Verses. Olive Press Amsterdam (translation from Sanskrit, commentary with references to contemporary philosophy)
• Kalupahana, David J. The Philosophy of the Middle Way. SUNY, 1986
• McCagney, Nancy, 1941. Nāgārjuna and the philosophy of openness. Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, c 1997.
• Murti, T. R. V., 1955. The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. George Allen and Unwin, London. 2nd edition: 1960.
• Murty, K. Satchidananda. 1971. Nagarjuna. National Book Trust, New Delhi. 2nd edition: 1978.
• Ramanan, K. Venkata. 1966. Nāgārjuna's Philosophy. Charles E. Tuttle, Vermont and Tokyo. Reprint: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi. 1978. (This book gives and excellent and detailed examination of the range and subtelties of Nagarjuna's philosophy.)
• Samdhong Rinpoche, ed. 1977. Madhyamika Dialectic and the Philosophy of Nagarjuna. Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, India.
• Sastri, H. Chatterjee, ed. 1977. The Philosophy of Nāgārjuna as contained in the Ratnāvalī. Part I [ Containing the text and introduction only ]. Saraswat Library, Calcutta.
• Streng, Frederick J. Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967.
• Walser, Joseph. Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
• Wedemeyer, Christian K. 2007. Āryadeva's Lamp that Integrates the Practices: The Gradual Path of Vajrayāna Buddhism according to the Esoteric Community Noble Tradition. New York: AIBS/Columbia University Press.
• Zangpo, Ngorchen Kunga. 1975. The Discipline of The Novice Monk. Including Ācārya Nāgārjuna's The (Discipline) of the Novice Monk of the Āryamūlasaryāstivādīn in Verse, and Vajradhara Ngorchen Kunga Zenpo's Word Explanation of the Abridged Ten Vows, The Concise Novice monks' Training. Translated by Lobsang Dapa et al. Sakya College, Mussoorie, India

Gnomic poetry consists of sententious maxims put into verse to aid the memory. ...

See also

• Middle way

The Middle Way or Middle Path (Sanskrit Madhyama Marga, Pali Majjhima Magga) is the Buddhist philosophy expounded by Gautama Buddha. ...

External links

• Nagarjuna: a bibliography
• Nagarjuna Seminar
• The Life of Nagarjuna
• Overview of traditional biographical accounts
• Online version of the Mula madhyamaka karika with Tibetan and English Translated by Stephen Batchelor
• Kaccayanagotta Sutta on Access to Insight
• Nārāgjuna vis-à-vis the Āgama-s and Nikāya-s
• ZenEssays: Nagarjuna and the Madhyamika
• She-rab Dong-bu (The Tree of Wisdom) LibriVox recording
• [2] Buddhism and Quantum Physics by Christian Thomas Kohl

The term Indian philosophy may refer to any of several traditions of philosophical thought, including: Hindu philosophy Buddhist philosophy Jain philosophy Sikh philosophy Carvaka atheist philosophy Lokayata materialist philosophy Tantric religious philosophy Bhakti religious philosophy Sufi religious philosophy Ahmadi religious philosophy Political and military philosophy such as that of Chanakya... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedias quality standards. ... For the Celtic Frost album, see Monotheist (album) In theology, monotheism (from Greek one and god) is the belief in the existence of one deity or God, or in the oneness of God. ... “Atheist” redirects here. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Euthyphro dilemma. ... 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