Nagarjuna

Topic: Buddhism, Jainism and Heterodox Traditions · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Nagarjuna was an Indian Buddhist thinker of probably the 2nd century CE (his exact dates are uncertain). He founded the Madhyamaka school (the "middle way" school) of Mahāyāna philosophy, which teaches śhūnyatā (emptiness, meaning nothing exists on its own).

He matters because his ideas gave Mahāyāna its strongest philosophical base. UPSC also tests his links with the Satavahanas and with Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh.

Explanation

Background: the rise of Mahāyāna

• The Mahāyāna movement arose within Indian Buddhism around the beginning of the Common Era. [1]
• Early Buddhism taught self-effort. Mahāyāna added the saviour idea and the bodhisattva ideal.
• The older schools held up the arhat, the perfected person who wins their own release. [1]

• Mahāyāna held up the bodhisattva, who vows to become a buddha and delays nirvana to help all beings. [1]

• The Mahāsaṅghika school is treated as a forerunner of Mahāyāna. [1] Nagarjuna came after this early change. He gave the new movement a worked-out philosophy.

His main ideas

• Madhyamaka (from madhyama, "middle"). Its followers are called Mādhyamikas.
• The school takes a middle path between two extreme views.

• One extreme says things exist forever. The other says nothing exists at all.

• Śhūnyatā (emptiness): nothing has a fixed, separate nature of its own.

• This does not mean nothing exists. Things exist, but only in dependence on other things.
• This builds on the Buddha's teaching of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination: everything arises because of causes and conditions).

• That is why the Madhyamaka is also called the Śhūnyavāda (the doctrine of emptiness).

• Two truths:

• Conventional truth: the everyday world we see and talk about.

• Ultimate truth: the emptiness of all things.

• Method: he used sharp logic to show that every fixed view contradicts itself when you push it to its end.

Writings

• His best-known work is the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā ("Root Verses on the Middle Way"), written in Sanskrit.
• Tradition also says he wrote a "Letter to a Friend" (Suhṛllekha), addressed to a Satavahana king. Historians are not sure which king this was.

Results and legacy

• Madhyamaka became one of the two main philosophical schools of Mahāyāna. The other is Yogāchāra.
• His ideas travelled with Mahāyāna to Central and East Asia. By the 9th century CE, Mahāyāna was the main influence on Buddhist cultures there. [1]
• In Tibet and China, later thinkers treated him as a "second Buddha". His thought shaped Chinese schools of Mahāyāna, including Chan (Zen). [2]

Time, place and evidence

• Period: probably c. 2nd century CE. Scholars give dates roughly between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE.
• Region: South India, most likely the Andhra region in the Krishna valley.
• Dynasty: tradition links him with the Satavahanas, who ruled the Deccan at that time.
• Nagarjunakonda ("Nagarjuna's hill"):
• It lies on the Krishna river in Andhra Pradesh.
• It was the capital (Vijayapuri) of the Ikshvakus, who came after the Satavahanas in the region (c. 3rd–4th century CE). Ikshvaku queens gave money to its Buddhist stupas and monasteries.
• The site is named after Nagarjuna. But no inscription found there proves that he lived there. The link comes from tradition.

• The valley was flooded by the Nagarjuna Sagar dam. Before that, the ruins were excavated, and some monuments were moved to an island museum.

• How we know about him:

• His own Sanskrit works.
• Later Tibetan and Chinese biographies. These are full of legend, for example the story that he brought texts back from the nāgas (serpent beings).
• The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (7th century CE) recorded a story linking him with a Satavahana king.

Don't confuse with

• Nagarjunakonda vs Amaravati: both are Buddhist sites in the Krishna valley in Andhra Pradesh. Nagarjunakonda was the Ikshvaku capital and is named after Nagarjuna. Amaravati is famous for its great Satavahana-period stupa.
• Nagarjuna (philosopher) vs Nagarjuna (alchemist): medieval texts on rasāyana (alchemy and metal-based medicine) are credited to a later Nagarjuna. He is a different person from the 2nd-century founder of Madhyamaka.
• Madhyamaka vs Yogāchāra: Madhyamaka (Nagarjuna) teaches emptiness. Yogāchāra (Asaṅga and Vasubandhu) teaches "mind-only", the idea that what we experience is built up by the mind.
• Nagarjuna vs Aśhvaghoṣha: Aśhvaghoṣha was a poet linked with Kanishka's court and wrote the Buddhacharita. Nagarjuna was a philosopher-logician linked with the Satavahanas.

Prelims Hooks

• Nagarjuna: founder of the Madhyamaka (Mādhyamika) school of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
• Key doctrine: śhūnyatā (emptiness), so the school is also called Śhūnyavāda.
• Main text: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, written in Sanskrit.
• He is linked by tradition with the Satavahanas. The Suhṛllekha is said to be a letter to a Satavahana king.
• Nagarjunakonda: in Andhra Pradesh, on the Krishna. It was the Ikshvaku capital Vijayapuri and is now partly under the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir.
• Trap: Madhyamaka = Mahāyāna, not Theravāda. The older tradition called itself Theravāda. Hīnayāna was the label Mahāyāna gave it. [1]

Mains Points

• Philosophy behind a religious change:
• Mahāyāna began as a change in practice: the saviour idea, the bodhisattva and image worship.
• Nagarjuna gave it a strict logical base through śhūnyatā and the two truths.

• This let Mahāyāna stand up to debate with Brahmanical schools and with the older Buddhist schools.

• South India and Buddhism:

• Nagarjuna's link with the Satavahanas, and later Ikshvaku support at Nagarjunakonda, show that the Deccan and Andhra were major Buddhist centres.
• Royal women and traders funded stupas and monasteries there.

• This corrects any picture of Buddhism as a purely north Indian faith.

• India's intellectual export:

• Nagarjuna's ideas moved along the routes that carried Buddhism to Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan and Tibet.
• There they were adapted, not copied. Mahāyāna in China mixed with Taoist and Confucian ideas to produce schools like Chan. [2]
• Nagarjuna is a strong example for GS-I answers on India's contribution to world thought.

Related concepts

• Mahayana
• Hinayana
• Bodhisattva
• Avalokiteshvara
• Maitreya
• Tara
• Vajrayana Buddhism
• Madhyamaka
• Yogachara
• Vasubandhu

Read more

• Later evolution: Mahāyāna and the changing religious landscape