NĀgĀrjuna(C. 150–250 Ce)
Nāgārjuna is the first and most important philosopher of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. His work is fundamental to all Mahāyāna philosophy and is widely discussed in the subsequent Buddhist literature of India, Tibet, and East Asia. His work has also attracted considerable attention in Europe and North America.
Life and Context
Canonical hagiographies of Nāgārjuna report that he was born a Brahman in South India, became a Buddhist monk, and later adviser to a king of the Sātavāhana dynasty. He is credited with retrieving the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras from the undersea world of the nāgās to whom, according to legend, the Buddha had entrusted them for safekeeping. Given that Nāgārjuna probably lived at about the time that some of these texts were composed, it is possible that he was associated with their composition or dissemination. Nāgārjuna's philosophical work is grounded in the views articulated in these sūtras, and he develops a thorough exposition and defense of the central doctrine they articulate—that all phenomena are empty of essence. While Nāgārjuna's philosophical program, including his interpretation of emptiness and his doctrine of the two truths, is in many respects highly original, it is also in other respects continuous with early Buddhist accounts of the impermanence, interdependence, and selflessness of the person and of phenomena (Vélez 2005).
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