|
|
|
|
Nagarjuna
|
| |
|
| |
, India.]]
Acharya Nagarjuna (Telugu: ?????????) (c. 150 - 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher and the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism.
His writings are the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka 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.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Nagarjuna' Start a new discussion about 'Nagarjuna' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
, India.]]
Acharya Nagarjuna (Telugu: ?????????) (c. 150 - 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher and the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism.
His writings are the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka 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.
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 Brahmin, 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.
Iconography and hagiography
Nagarjuna 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 notion of the naga is found throughout Indian religious culture, and typically signifies an intelligent serpent or dragon, who is responsible for the rains, lakes and other bodies of water. In Buddhism, it is a synonym for a realized arhat, or wise person in general. The term also means "elephant".
History
Very few details on the life of Nagarjuna are known, although many legends exist. He was born in Southern India, near the town of Nagarjunakonda (?????????????) in present day Nagarjuna Sagar (??????????????) in the Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. According to traditional biographers and historians such as Kumarajiva, 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 Pali or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit.
From studying his writings, it is clear that Nagarjuna was conversant with many of the Nikaya school philosophies and with the emerging Mahayana tradition. However, affilitation to a specific Nikaya school is difficult, considering much of this material is presently lost. If the most commonly accepted attribution of texts (that of Christian Lindtner) holds, then he was clearly a Mahayanist, but his philosophy holds assiduously to the non-Mahayana canon, and while he does make explicit references to Mahayana texts, he is always careful to stay within the parameters set out by the canon.
Nagarjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the Canon. In the eyes of Nagarjuna the Buddha was not merely a forerunner, but the very founder of the Madhyamaka system. David Kalupahana sees Nagarjuna as a successor to Moggaliputta-Tissa in being a champion of the middle-way and a reviver of the original philosophical ideals of the Buddha.
Writings
There exist a number of influential texts attributed to Nagarjuna, although most were probably written by later authors. The only work that all scholars agree is Nagarjuna's is the Mulamadhyamakakarika (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:
- Mulamadhyamaka-karika (Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way)
- Sunyatasaptati (Seventy Verses on Emptiness)
- Vigrahavyavartani (The End of Disputes)
(Pulverizing the Categories)
- Vyavaharasiddhi (Proof of Convention)
(Sixty Verses on Reasoning)
(Hymn to the Absolute Reality)
- Ratnavali (Precious Garland)
(Constituents of Dependent Arising)
(Exposition of the Enlightened Mind)
(To a Good Friend)
(Requisites of Enlightenment)
There are other works attributed to Nagarjuna, 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 Nagarjuna 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 Madhyamika Nagarjuna and his school. Traditional historians (for example, the 17th century Tibetan Taranatha), 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 Mahaprajñaparamitopadesa, a huge commentary on the Large Prajñaparamita not to be a genuine work of Nagarjuna. This is only extant in a Chinese translation by Kumarajiva. There is much discussion as to whether this is a work of Nagarjuna, or someone else. Étienne Lamotte, who translated one third of the Upadesa into French, felt that it was the work of a North Indian bhikkhu of the Sarvastivada school, who later became a convert to the Mahayana. The Chinese scholar-monk Yin Shun felt that it was the work of a South Indian, and that Nagarjuna was quite possibly the author. Actually, these two views are not necessarily in opposition, and a South Indian Nagarjuna could well have studied in the northern Sarvastivada. Neither of the two felt that it was composed by Kumarajiva which others have rashly suggested.
Philosophy
Nagarjuna's primary contribution to Buddhist philosophy is in the further development of the concept of sunyata, or "emptiness," which brings together other key Buddhist doctrines, particularly anatta (no-self) and pratityasamutpada (dependent origination). For Nagarjuna, it is not merely sentient beings that are empty of atman; all phenomena are without any svabhava, 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.
Nagarjuna 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 upaya in later Mahayana writings. Nagarjuna drew on an early version of this doctrine found in the Kaccayanagotta Sutta, which distinguishes nitartha (clear) and neyartha (obscure) terms -
- 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.
- "By and large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), and biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on 'my self.' He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It's to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view.
- "'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle..."
Nagarjuna differentiates between (conventional) and paramartha (ultimately true) teachings, but he never declares any to fall in this latter category; for him, even sunyata is sunya--even emptiness is empty. For him, ultimately,
- |
- ||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.
Nagarjuna also taught the idea of relativity; in the Ratnavali, he gives the example that shortness exists only in relation to the idea of length. The determination of a thing or object is only possible in relation to other things or objects, especially by way of contrast. He held that the relationship between the ideas of "short" and "long" is not due to intrinsic nature (svabhava). This idea is also found in the Pali Nikayas and Chinese Agamas, in which the idea of relativity is expressed similarly: "That which is the element of light ... is seen to exist on account of [in relation to] darkness; that which is the element of good is seen to exist on account of bad; that which is the element of space is seen to exist on account of form."
For more on Nagarjuna's philosophy, see Mulamadhyamakakarika.
English translations
Mulamadhyamakakarika
Other works
| Author | Title | Publisher | Notes | Lindtner, C | Nagarjuniana | Motilal, 1987 [1982] | Contains Sanskrit or Tibetan texts and translations of the
Shunyatasaptati, Vaidalyaprakarana, Vyavaharasiddhi (fragment),
Yuktisastika, Catuhstava and Bodhicittavivarana. A translation only
of the Bodhisambharaka. The Sanskrit and Tibetan texts are given
for the Vigrahavyavartani. In addition a table of source sutras is
given for the Sutrasamuccaya. | Komito, D R | Nagarjuna's "Seventy Stanzas" | Snow Lion, 1987 | Translation of the Shunyatasaptati with Tibetan commentary | Bhattacharya, Johnston and Kunst | The Dialectical Method of Nagarjuna | Motilal, 1978 | A superb translation of the Vigrahavyavartani | Kawamura, L | Golden Zephyr | Dharma, 1975 | Translation of the Suhrlekkha with a Tibetan commentary | Jamieson, R.C. | Nagarjuna's Verses on the Great Vehicle
and the Heart of Dependent Origination | D.K., 2001 | Translation and edited Tibetan of the Mahayanavimsika and the Pratityasamutpadahrdayakarika, including work on texts from the cave temple at Dunhuang, Gansu, China | Lindtner, C. | Master of Wisdom: Writings of the Buddhist Master Nagarjuna | Dharma, 1986 | An excellent introduction to Madhyamika, Master of Wisdom contains two hymns of praise to the Buddha, two treatises on Shunyata, and two works that clarify the connection of analysis, meditation, and moral conduct. Includes Tibetan verses in transliteration and critical editions of extant Sanskrit.
Tibetan Translation (product ID: 0-89800-286-9) | Tola, Fernando and Carmen Dragonetti | Vaidalyaprakarana | South Asia Books, 1995 | Hopkins, Jeffrey | Nagarjuna's Precious Garland: Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation | Snow Lion Publications, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1559392746 |
See also
External links
-
-
-
-
- Translated by Stephen Batchelor
-
- Byoma Kusuma Nepalese Dharmasangha
-
- LibriVox recording
|
| |
|
|
