Nāgārjuna

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Nāgārjuna

ཀླུ་སྒྲུབ་

Nāgārjuna was the c. 2nd century founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy. He is eulogized in the Tibetan tradition as one of the group of great Indian scholars known as the Six Ornaments, though he is equally renown in the Chinese and other East Asian Buddhist traditions. He was the first major Mahāyāna philosopher and his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā became the standard exposition for the Mahāyāna view of emptiness (śūnyatā) as presented in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras.

Also known as

འཕགས་པ་ཀླུ་སྒྲུབ་སློབ་དཔོན་ཆེན་པོ་ནཱ་གརྫུ་ན་སློབ་དཔོན་ཀླུ་སྒྲུབ་'phags pa klu sgrubslob dpon chen po nA gardzu naslob dpon klu sgrubĀrya Nāgārjuna

Categories

Classical Indian AuthorsAuthors of Sanskrit Works

Teacher of

ĀryadevaŚavaripa

49 Authored & Translated Works

Library items authored or translated by Nāgārjuna.

6 Works About Nāgārjuna

Scholarship and editorial content in which this person is a subject rather than an author.

Madhyamaka - Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Skt मध्यमक  Tib དབུ་མ་  Ch 中觀見  

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Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of the Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt महायान  Tib ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ།  Ch 大乘  

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Śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt शून्यता  Tib སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་  Ch 空;空門  

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Śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt शून्यता  Tib སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་  Ch 空;空門  

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Prajñāpāramitā - A class of Mahāyāna sūtras which represents some of the earliest known literature of this genre of Buddhism. There are around forty texts associated with this category, though the most widespread is the exceedingly brief Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra, popularly known as the Heart Sūtra. This class of literature is typically associated with the second turning of the dharma wheel and especially with the teachings on emptiness (śūnyatā). As such, these texts were the primary scriptural source for the philosophy of the Madhyamaka school. Skt प्रज्ञापारमिता  Tib ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་;ཤེར་ཕྱིན་  Ch 般若波羅蜜多  

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Sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt सूत्र  Tib མདོ།  Ch 佛经  

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