Nagarjuna


Nāgārjuna was an Indian philosopher and Mahāyāna Buddhist monk of the Madhyamaka school. Nāgārjuna is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers. He was the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy and a defender of the Mahāyāna movement. His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is the most important text on the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness. The MMK inspired a large number of commentaries in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean and Japanese and continues to be studied today.

History

Background

India in the first and second centuries CE was politically divided into various states, including the Kushan Empire and the Satavahana Kingdom. At this point in Buddhist history, the Buddhist community was already divided into various Buddhist schools and had spread throughout India.
At this time, there was already a small and nascent Mahāyāna movement. Mahāyāna ideas were held by a minority of Buddhists in India at the time. As Joseph Walser writes, "Mahāyāna before the fifth century was largely invisible and probably existed only as a minority and largely unrecognized movement within the fold of nikāya Buddhism." By the second century, early Mahāyāna Sūtras such as the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā were already circulating among certain Mahāyāna circles.

Life

Very little is reliably known of the life of Nāgārjuna and modern historians do not agree on a specific date or place for him. The earliest surviving accounts were written in Chinese and Tibetan centuries after his death and are mostly hagiographical accounts that are historically unverifiable.
Some scholars such as Joseph Walser argue that Nāgārjuna was an advisor to a king of the Sātavāhana dynasty which ruled the Deccan Plateau in the second century. This is supported by most of the traditional hagiographical sources as well. Archaeological evidence at Amarāvatī indicates that if this is true, the king may have been Yajña Śrī Śātakarṇi. On the basis of this association, Nāgārjuna is conventionally placed at around 150–250 CE.
Walser thinks that it is most likely that when Nāgārjuna wrote the Ratnavali, he lived in a mixed monastery in which Mahāyānists were the minority. The most likely sectarian affiliation of the monastery according to Walser was Purvasailya, Aparasailya, or Caityaka.
He also argues that "it is plausible that he wrote the Ratnavali within a thirty-year period at the end of the second century in the Andhra region around Dhanyakataka."

Traditional hagiography

According to Walser, "the earliest extant legends about Nāgārjuna are compiled into Kumārajīva’s biography of Nāgārjuna, which he translated into Chinese in about 405 CE." According to this biography, Nāgārjuna was born into a Brahmin family and later became a Buddhist. The traditional religious hagiographies place Nāgārjuna in various regions of India
Traditional religious hagiographies credit Nāgārjuna with being associated with the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras as well as with having revealed these scriptures to the world after they had remained hidden for some time. The sources differ on where this happened and how Nāgārjuna retrieved the sutras. Some sources say he retrieved the sutras from the land of the nāgas.
Nāgārjuna himself is often depicted in composite form comprising human and nāga characteristics. Nāgas are snake-like supernatural beings of great magical power that feature in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain mythology. Nāgas are found throughout Indian religious culture, and typically signify intelligent serpents or dragons that are responsible for rain, lakes, and other bodies of water. In Buddhism, a naga can be a symbol of a realised arhat or wise person.
Traditional sources also claim that Nāgārjuna practised ayurvedic alchemy. Kumārajīva's biography, for example, depicts Nāgārjuna making an elixir of invisibility, and Buton Rinchen Drub, Taranatha and Xuanzang all state that he could turn rocks into gold.
Tibetan hagiographies also state that Nāgārjuna studied at Nālanda University. However, according to Walser, this university was not a strong monastic center until about 425. Also, as Walser notes, "Xuanzang and Yijing both spent considerable time at Nālanda and studied Nāgārjuna’s texts there. It is strange that they would have spent so much time there and yet chose not to report any local tales of a man whose works played such an important part in the curriculum."
Some sources claim that in his later years, Nāgārjuna lived on the mountain of Śrīparvata near the city that would later be called Nāgārjunakoṇḍa. The ruins of Nāgārjunakoṇḍa are located in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh. The Caitika and Bahuśrutīya nikāyas are known to have had monasteries in Nāgārjunakoṇḍa. The archaeological finds at Nāgārjunakoṇḍa have not resulted in any evidence that the site was associated with Nagarjuna. The name "Nāgārjunakoṇḍa" dates from the medieval period, and the 3rd–4th century inscriptions found at the site make it clear that it was known as "Vijayapuri" in the ancient period.

Other Nāgārjunas

There are a multitude of texts attributed to "Nāgārjuna", many of these texts date from much later periods. This has caused much confusion for the traditional Buddhist biographers and doxographers. Modern scholars are divided on how to classify these later texts and how many later writers called "Nāgārjuna" existed.
Some scholars have posited that there was a separate Aryuvedic writer called Nāgārjuna who wrote numerous treatises on Rasayana. Also, there is a later Tantric Buddhist author by the same name who may have been a scholar at Nālandā University and wrote on Buddhist tantra. According to Donald S. Lopez Jr., he originally belonged to a Brahmin family from eastern India and later became Buddhist.
There is also a Jain figure of the same name who was said to have travelled to the Himalayas. Walser thinks that it is possible that stories related to this figure influenced Buddhist legends as well.

Works

There exist a number of influential texts attributed to Nāgārjuna; however, as there are many pseudepigrapha attributed to him, lively controversy exists over which are his authentic works.

''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā''

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is Nāgārjuna's best-known work. It is "not only a grand commentary on the Buddha's discourse to Kaccayana, the only discourse cited by name, but also a detailed and careful analysis of most of the important discourses included in the Nikayas and the Agamas, especially those of the Atthakavagga of the Sutta-nipata.
In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, "ll experienced phenomena are empty. This did not mean that they are not experienced and, therefore, non-existent; only that they are devoid of a permanent and eternal substance because, like a dream, they are mere projections of human consciousness. Since these imaginary fictions are experienced, they are not mere names."

Major attributed works

According to David Seyfort Ruegg, the Madhyamakasastrastuti attributed to Candrakirti refers to eight texts by Nagarjuna:
the karikas, the Yuktisastika, the Sunyatasaptati, the Vigrahavyavartani, the Vidala, the Ratnavali, the Sutrasamuccaya, and Samstutis. This list covers not only much less than the grand total of works ascribed to Nagarjuna in the Chinese and Tibetan collections, but it does not even include all such works that Candrakirti has himself cited in his writings.
According to one view, that of Christian Lindtner, the works definitely written by Nāgārjuna are:
  • Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā, available in three Sanskrit manuscripts and numerous translations.
  • Śūnyatāsaptati, accompanied by a prose commentary ascribed to Nagarjuna himself.
  • Vigrahavyāvartanī.
  • , a prose work critiquing the categories used by Indian Nyaya philosophy.
  • Vyavahārasiddhi.
  • .
  • : Lokātīta-stava, Niraupamya-stava, Acintya-stava, and Paramārtha-stava.
  • Ratnāvalī, subtitled, a discourse addressed to an Indian king.
  • , along with a short commentary.
  • Sūtrasamuccaya, an anthology of various sutra passages.
  • .
  • .
  • , a work the path of the Bodhisattva and paramitas, it is quoted by Candrakirti in his commentary on Aryadeva's four hundred. Now only extant in Chinese translation.
Other scholars have challenged and argued against some of the above works being Nagarjuna's. David F. Burton notes that Christian Lindtner is "rather liberal" with his list of works and that other scholars have called some of these into question. He notes how Paul Williams argued convincingly that the must be a later text. In his study, Burton relies on the texts that he considers "least controversial": Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā, Vigrahavyāvartanī, Śūnyatāsaptati,,, and Ratnāvalī.
Similarly, Jan Westerhoff notes how there is uncertainty about the attribution of Nagarjuna's works. He relies on six works: MMK, Vigrahavyāvartanī, Śūnyatāsaptati,, and Ratnāvalī, all of which "expound a single, coherent philosophical system", and are attributed to Nagarjuna by a variety of Indian and Tibetan sources.
The Tibetan historian Buston considers the first six to be the main treatises of Nāgārjuna, while according to Tāranātha only the first five are the works of Nāgārjuna. TRV Murti considers Ratnāvalī, Pratītyasamutpādahṝdaya and Sūtrasamuccaya to be works of Nāgārjuna as the first two are quoted profusely by Chandrakirti and the third by Shantideva.

Other attributed works

In addition to works mentioned above, numerous other works are attributed to Nāgārjuna, many of which are dubious attributions and later works. There is an ongoing, lively controversy over which of those works are authentic. Christian Lindtner divides the various attributed works as "1) correctly attributed, 2) wrongly attributed to him, and 3) those which may or may not be genuine."
Lindtner further divides the third category of dubious or questionable texts into those which are "perhaps authentic" and those who are unlikely to be authentic.
Those which he sees as perhaps being authentic include:
  • Mahāyānavimsika, it is cited as Nagarjuna's work in the Tattvasamgraha as well as by Atisha, Lindtner sees the style and content as compatible with the yukti corpus. Survives in Sanskrit.
  • Bodhicittotpādavidhi, a short text that describes the sevenfold write for a bodhisattva,
  • Dvadasakāranayastotra, a madhyamaka text only extant in Tibetan,
  • Bhavasamkrānti, a verse from this is attributed to Nagarjuna by Bhavaviveka.
  • Nirālamba-stava,
  • Sālistambakārikā, only exists in Tibetan, it is a versification of the Śālistamba Sūtra
  • Stutytitastava, only exists in Tibetan
  • Danaparikatha, only exists in Tibetan, a praise of giving
  • Cittavajrastava,
  • Mulasarvāstivadisrāmanerakārikā, 50 karikas on the Vinaya of the Mulasarvastivadins
  • Dasabhumikavibhāsā, only exists in Chinese, a commentary on the Dashabhumikasutra
  • Lokapariksā,
  • Yogasataka, a medical text
  • Prajñadanda
  • Rasavaisesikasutra, a rasayana text
  • Bhāvanākrama, contains various verses similar to the Lankavatara, it is cited in the Tattvasamgraha as by Nagarjuna
  • Rasaratnākara deals with the formation of mercury compounds.
Ruegg notes various works of uncertain authorship which have been attributed to Nagarjuna, including the Dharmadhatustava, Mahayanavimsika, Salistambakarikas, the Bhavasamkranti, and the Dasabhumtkavibhāsā. Furthermore, Ruegg writes that "three collections of stanzas on the virtues of intelligence and moral conduct ascribed to Nagarjuna are extant in Tibetan translation": Prajñasatakaprakarana, Nitisastra-Jantuposanabindu and ''Niti-sastra-Prajñadanda.''