Who was Nāgārjuna?

Nāgārjuna is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Buddhism. He was an Indian monk and philosopher, probably active in the second century CE, and he is regarded as the founder of the Madhyamaka, or "middle way", school of Mahayana philosophy. Many traditions in Tibet and East Asia honour him as a great teacher.

What we know about his life

Very little is known for certain. Scholars generally place him in southern India in the second century CE. Later biographies are full of legend. A well-known story says he retrieved the Perfection of Wisdom sutras from the nāgas, serpent beings who had kept them safe. Many works are attributed to him, but scholars agree on only some of them.

The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way

His best-known work is the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the "Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way". In short, dense verses, it examines ideas such as causation, motion, time, the self and nirvana. Again and again it shows that if one assumes things have a fixed, independent nature, called svabhāva, contradictions follow.

Emptiness and dependent origination

Nāgārjuna's central teaching is emptiness (śūnyatā). Emptiness does not mean that nothing exists. It means that nothing exists independently. Everything arises in dependence on causes, conditions and parts, and is in that sense empty of an essence of its own.

He links this directly to the Buddha's teaching of dependent origination. Whatever arises dependently, he says, is emptiness, and this is the middle way. It avoids two extremes: the view that things exist by their own nature, and the view that nothing exists at all.

He also warns that emptiness is not one more view to cling to. It is a medicine for wrong views, and it should not itself become a fixed position.

Two truths

Nāgārjuna explains the Buddha's teaching through two truths. Conventional truth is the everyday world of people, things and actions, where the path is practised and karma works. Ultimate truth is the emptiness of all these. The two do not contradict each other. Without the conventional, he says, the ultimate cannot be taught.

His influence

Later Madhyamaka thinkers such as Candrakīrti and Śāntideva built on his work, and it became central to Tibetan Buddhist study. In East Asia, his thought shaped schools such as Sanlun, and indirectly Zen. Readers still study his verses closely today.