Nagarjuna
Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.[2] Furthermore, according to Jan Westerhoff, he is also "one of the greatest thinkers in the history of Asian philosophy."[3]
Nāgārjuna is widely considered to be the founder of the madhyamaka (centrism, middle-way) school of Buddhist philosophy and a defender of the Mahāyāna movement.[2][4] His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Root Verses on Madhyamaka, MMK) 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.[5]
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Main article: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is Nāgārjuna's best-known work. It is "not only a grand commentary on the Buddha's discourse to Kaccayana,[27] 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.[28]
Utilizing the Buddha's theory of "dependent arising" (pratitya-samutpada), Nagarjuna demonstrated the futility of [...] metaphysical speculations. His method of dealing with such metaphysics is referred to as "middle way" (madhyama pratipad). It is the middle way that avoided the substantialism of the Sarvastivadins as well as the nominalism of the Sautrantikas.[29]
In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, "[A]ll experienced phenomena are empty (sunya). This did not mean that they are not experienced and, therefore, non-existent; only that they are devoid of a permanent and eternal substance (svabhava) because, like a dream, they are mere projections of human consciousness. Since these imaginary fictions are experienced, they are not mere names (prajnapti)."[29]
Affirmative Nirvana: Cross-cultural encounters between Nagarjuna and Gilles Deleuze