trajectories associated with the Mahāyāna stream of Buddhist thought.
According to Tibetan doxographical literature, Madhyamaka represents
the philosophically definitive expression of Buddhist doctrine.
Stemming from the second-century writings of Nāgārjuna, Madhyamaka
developed in the form of commentaries on his works. This style of
development is characteristic of the basically scholastic character of
the Indian philosophical tradition. The commentaries elaborated not
only varying interpretations of Nāgārjuna's philosophy but also
different understandings of the philosophical tools that are
appropriate to its advancement. Tibetan interpreters generally claim
to take the seventh-century commentaries of Candrakīrti as
authoritative, but Indian commentators subsequent to him were in fact
more influential in the course of Indian philosophy. Madhyamaka also
had considerable influence (though by way of a rather different set of
texts) in East Asian Buddhism, where a characteristic interpretive
concern has been to harmonize Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. Although
perhaps most frequently characterized by modern interpreters as a
Buddhist version of skepticism, Madhyamaka arguably develops
metaphysical concerns. The logically elusive character of Madhyamaka
arguments has fascinated and perplexed generations of scholars. This
is surely appropriate with regard to a school whose principal term of
art, "emptiness" (śūnyatā), reflects developments in Buddhist thought
from the high scholasticism of Tibet to the enigmatic discourse of
East Asian Zen.
1. Nāgārjuna and the Paradoxical "Perfection of Wisdom" Literature
"Madhyamaka" is a Sanskrit word that simply means "middle way." (The
derivative form "Mādhyamika" literally means "of or relating to the
middle," and conventionally designates an adherent of the school, or
qualifies some aspect of its thought.) Madhyamaka refers to the Indian
Buddhist school of thought that develops in the form of commentaries
on the works of Nāgārjuna, who flourished around 150 C.E. Nāgārjuna
figures in the traditional accounts developed to authenticate the
literature of the self-styled "Mahāyāna" stream of Buddhist thought.
Arguing that sūtras known to have begun circulating only at the
beginning of the first millennium could nevertheless represent the
authentic teaching of the Buddha (buddhavacana), proponents of
Mahāyāna invoked the characteristically Buddhist idea of "skill in
means" (upāyakauśalya); they thus claimed that the Mahāyāna sūtras
promulgate an advanced stage of the Buddha's teaching such as would
not have been appropriately taught to the earliest auditors of the
Buddha, who, unprepared by the necessarily preparatory earlier
teachings, might draw nihilistic conclusions from the sūtras. It is
Nāgārjuna who is said first to have recovered and promulgated these
sūtras, having retrieved the Prajñāpāramitā ("Perfection of Wisdom")
literature from the underwater kingdom of the "Nāgas," or serpent
kings.
Two texts generally represent the criteria for attributing authorship
of a text to Nāgārjuna. So, this name conventionally refers to the
person who wrote the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās (MMK, "Verses on the Firmly
Fixed Middle Way") and the Vigrahavyāvartanī (VV, "Turning Back
Objections"). Both of these texts, but particularly the former, have
occasioned a great deal of interest among Indologists and
philosophers. This is not surprising, since the MMK is indeed a rich
text. Stylistically lucid yet logically enigmatic, Nāgārjuna's major
work shares with the Prajñāpāramitā literature a characteristic air of
paradox, which Madhyamaka's critics see as evidence of nihilism if not
of incoherence. We read in this text, for example, that "there is, on
the part of saṃsāra, no difference at all from nirvāṇa" (MMK 25.19).
The text's first verse says "There do not exist, anywhere at all, any
existents whatsoever, arisen either from themselves or from something
else, either from both or altogether without cause." (MMK 1.1)
2. The Basic Philosophical Impulse
a. The "Two Truths" in Buddhist Abhidharma
In styling the school that develops from Nāgārjuna's works the "middle
way" (an expression used by Nāgārjuna himself), proponents of
Madhyamaka exploited a long-invoked Buddhist trope. Traditional
accounts of the life of the Buddha typically characterize him as
striking a "middle way" between the extravagance of the courtly life
that had been available to him as a prince and the extreme asceticism
he is said initially to have tried in his pursuit of transformative
insight. Philosophically, the relevant extremes between which any
Buddhist account of the person must steer are "eternalism" and
"nihilism." Eternalism (śāśvatavāda) is the view that there are
enduring existents of which the self is an example. Nihilism
(ucchedavāda) might be termed "eliminativism," and denotes, for
Buddhists, the view that actions (karma) have no ethical consequences,
insofar as the agents of actions cannot be said to endure as the
subjects who will experience their effects.
Given their characteristically Buddhist concern to refuse the
existence of an ultimately existent "self," it is the nihilism pole
that Mādhyamikas must work hardest to avoid. Indeed, the concern to
avoid charges of nihilism represents one of the most significant
preoccupations of Mādhyamika philosophers. This concern has to be
understood in terms of the traditionally Buddhist idea of "two
truths," or two levels of explanation or description: the familiar
level of discourse that includes reference to the "conventionally
existent" (saṃvṛtisat), and the level which makes reference only to
what is "ultimately existent" (parmārthasat). Most schools of Buddhist
philosophy can be understood in terms of the sense in which they deny
the "ultimate" existence of the self, while affirming its
"conventional" existence.
In its basically Ābhidharmika iterations (that is, in the ways
elaborated in the earliest scholastic literature of Indian Buddhism,
the so-called "Abhidharma") this denial of the ultimate existence of
the self is an idea that can be understood as comparable to a great
deal of contemporary philosophical discussion. Philosophical projects
in cognitive science can be said, for example, to turn on questions of
how (or perhaps whether) to relate two levels of description: (1) the
broadly intentional level of description that generally reflects the
first-person, phenomenological perspective (and that is also reflected
in ordinary language and interactions), and (2) the scientific level
of description at which the real explanatory work is done. Similarly,
the broadly Ābhidharmika trajectory of Buddhist philosophy has it that
the two truths basically consist in two sets of existing things: the
set of conventionally existent (saṃvṛtisat) things and the set of
ultimately existent (parmārthasat) things. The "conventionally
existent" comprises all reducible or supervenient phenomena
(basically, all temporally enduring macro-objects); the "ultimately
existent" represents the set of ontological primitives, which the
Abhidharma literature calls "dharmas." It is ultimately the case,
then, that causal interactions among the dharmas exhaustively explain
all conventional events.
The works of Nāgārjuna and his philosophical heirs are best understood
as constitutively opposed to this understanding of the two truths. The
foundational idea of Madhyamaka is that the set of ultimately existent
things is an empty set – a point that Mādhyamikas characteristically
promote by insisting on the emptiness (śūnyatā) not only of wholes
such as persons, but also of the analytic categories (dharmas) to
which these are reduced in Abhidharma literature. The works of
Nāgārjuna and his commentators, then, typically comprise arguments to
the effect that none of the analytic categories (dharmas) and concepts
used to explain anything can be coherently formulated. More precisely,
the argument is that no such categories can intrinsically provide any
explanatory purchase on the phenomena they purportedly explain.
b. The Interminability of Dependent Origination
In proceeding this way, Mādhyamikas can be understood to think that
the ontologizing impulse of Abhidharma compromises the most important
insight of the Buddhist tradition – which is, on the Mādhyamika
reading, that all existents are "dependently originated"
(pratītyasamutpanna). (The cardinal doctrine of the "dependent
origination" of all existents represents the flip-side of the Buddhist
denial of a "self"; that is, the reason we do not have unitary and
enduring selves just is that any moment of experience can be explained
as having originated from innumerable causes, none of which can be
specified as what we "really" are.) More precisely, Mādhyamikas can be
said to have recognized that the ontological primitives posited by
Abhidharma could have explanatory purchase only if they are posited as
an exception to the rule that everything is dependently originated;
that is, dependently originated existents could only be ultimately
explained by something that does not itself require the same kind of
explanation. But it is precisely the Mādhyamika point to emphasize
that there is no exception to this rule; phenomena are dependently
originated all the way down, and it is therefore impossible to specify
precisely what it is upon which anything finally depends. Hence, there
can be no set of "ultimately existent" things.
Mādhyamika arguments to this effect typically work by showing that all
explanatory categories turn out to be constitutively dependent upon
the phenomena they purportedly explain – as, for example, notions such
as "fire" and "fuel," "action" and "agent," or "cause" and "effect"
are intelligible only relative to one another. To show the
constitutively relative (that is, dependent) character of all such
explanatory categories and phenomena is effectively to make the one
point that Mādhyamikas are most concerned to make: that insofar as
there is nothing that is not dependently originated, there is
therefore nothing that is not "empty" (śūnya). (This paraphrases MMK
24.19, which says: "Since there is no dharma whatsoever that is not
dependently originated, therefore there is no dharma whatsoever that
is not empty.")
In thus characterizing all categories and all existents as finally
"empty," what Mādhyamikas mean is that they are empty of what we may
translate as "essence" (svabhāva). This is true just insofar as they
exist not "essentially" (svabhāvena), but only relatively – that is,
only in relation to other existents and categories. In arguing thus,
Mādhyamikas – typifying characteristically Sanskritic styles of
argumentation, in which the terms and analyses of the Sanskrit
grammarians figure prominently – exploit the etymology of the word
svabhāva. Although the semantic range of this Sanskrit word typically
comprises ideas like "defining characteristic" or "identity," the word
can etymologically be read as referring to something "existent"
(bhāva) "by itself" (sva-). Among the recently debated exegetical
questions concerning Madhyamaka has been whether important Mādhyamika
arguments centrally involve an equivocation on this term,
unwarrantedly equating "identity" with "causally independent
existence."
c. Ethics and the Charge of Nihilism
It is not only in their characteristically Buddhist denial of a really
existent "self," but also in their more radical (and rhetorically
charged) emphasis on the universally obtaining character of emptiness
that Mādhyamikas recurrently elicited charges of nihilism – a charge
as often issuing from proponents of other Buddhist schools as from the
various Brahmanical schools of Indian philosophy. One of the most
prominently recurrent sorts of exchange in Nāgārjuna's MMK involves an
interlocutor's presupposing that by 'emptiness' Mādhyamikas must mean
non-existence. For example, the twenty-fourth chapter of the MMK
begins with the challenge of an imagined interlocutor (this one
clearly another Buddhist): "If all this is empty, then there's neither
production nor destruction; it follows, for you, that the Four Noble
Truths don't exist." (MMK 24.1) The rejoinder (at MMK 24.20): it is in
fact only because everything is empty – which just is to say,
dependently originated – that the Four Noble Truths can obtain. That
is, the fact that existents only come into being in mutual dependence
upon one another (and are therefore "empty" of an essence) is all that
makes it possible for (what is the first Noble Truth) suffering to
arise – and thus having arisen as a contingent and dependent
phenomenon, to be caused to cease (the third Noble Truth). If, in
contrast, suffering were the "natural" or "essential" state of affairs
(svabhāva), this would (as Nāgārjuna sees it) mean that it could not
be interrupted, and the cultivation of the entire Buddhist path would
be impossible.
It is particularly important for the proponent of Madhyamaka to
foreclose the possibility of a nihilist reading of claims regarding
emptiness insofar as it is finally the ethical and soteriological
project of Buddhist practice that is thought to be at stake. In this
regard, the characteristically Mādhyamika conviction is that it is in
fact the Ābhidharmika iteration of the Buddhist project (and not
Mādhyamika claims regarding emptiness) that is "nihilist." This is
because on the characteristically Ābhidharmika understanding of the
"two truths," the world as "conventionally" described – as consisting,
for example, in suffering persons whose plight should elicit
compassionate dedication to the Buddhist path – is finally altogether
superseded by the privileged level of description constitutively
developed in the Abhidharma literature. The characteristically
Ābhidharmika enumeration of the dharmas that putatively constitute the
set of "ultimately existent" things amounts to the specification of
what "really" exists instead of the self. If, in contrast, it is
recognized that no such privileged level of description can coherently
be elaborated – that, in other words, there is no set of ontological
primitives in terms of which the only real explanatory work can be
done, and that in that sense there is nothing "more real" than the
world as conventionally described – then the world is finally to be
accepted as irreducibly "conventional," and the persons therein can
hence be regarded as ethical agents who are not finally eliminable in
terms of the analytic categories of Abhidharma.
3. The Question of Self-contradiction and the Possible Truth of
Mādhyamika Claims
But this understanding also raises what are surely the most
philosophically complex and interesting problems in understanding
Madhyamaka: if the constitutive claim of Madhyamaka is to be taken as
one to the effect that the ultimate truth is that there is (in the
sense described) no "ultimate truth," it is easy to ask: What is the
status of this claim itself? It would seem open to the Mādhyamika only
to allow that it is itself conventionally true – but is that not just
to say that one may as well choose not to adopt this particular
"convention"? The problem, then, is whether characteristically
Mādhyamika claims are, to the extent they are true, performatively
self-contradictory or self-referentially incoherent. This problem was
well understood (if not always clearly addressed) by proponents of
Madhyamaka, and is very much in play in characteristically Mādhyamika
claims to the effect that "emptiness" itself is empty – that, in other
words, the Mādhyamika analysis is to be applied not only to all
existents, but also to this analysis thereof.
To say as much is the only way consistently to affirm the universal
scope of claims regarding emptiness; for there would clearly be a
performative self-contradiction in claiming that "all existents are
empty-cum-dependently-originated," while yet allowing that claim
itself to stand as an exception – as itself having, that is, the kind
of "ultimately" privileged explanatory purchase that is denied with
respect to all other analyses. But it is a complex matter whether the
Mādhyamika can, in avoiding this route to self-contradiction, affirm
the "emptiness of emptiness" without thereby depriving his own claim
of any purchase. It is particularly at this point, then, that there is
an air of paradox going to the heart of Mādhyamika discourse, finding
expression in, for example, apparent claims to the effect that no
claim is being made; hence, such quintessentially Mādhyamika tropes as
the claim that Madhyamaka advances no philosophical "thesis"
(pratijñā), and that "emptiness" does not reflect any specific "view"
(dṛṣṭi).
Such rhetoric characteristically expresses what is surely the central
interpretive and philosophical issue at stake in understanding
Madhyamaka, and it is not surprising, in this regard, that Madhyamaka
should often have been interpreted by modern scholars as having
affinities with Hellenistic skepticism. Another line of interpretation
(often inflected in recent years by appeal to Wittgenstein, or to
various poststructuralist thinkers) has it that Mādhyamika claims not
to be making any claim should be taken seriously as expressing a
basically "therapeutic" sort of stance – one meant performatively to
undermine (in something like the same way, perhaps, as in the Zen
discourse of koans) soteriologically counter-productive profusions of
discursive thought. This line of interpretation can be warranted by
characteristically Mādhyamika talk about the elimination of prapañca
(often translated as conceptual "proliferation"), and by paeans to the
"ultimate truth" as something finally ineffable.
Such readings are, however, difficult to reconcile with what many
Tibetan interpreters (perhaps notwithstanding such rhetoric) took to
be the constitutively Mādhyamika claim: namely, that "emptiness" just
means (and is the only way consistently to describe) "dependent
origination." If it is said, for example, that there is nothing
"non-empty" just insofar as there is nothing that is not dependently
originated (here again, paraphrasing MMK 24.19), that would seem to
preclude, at least, the truth of statements (made, e.g., by certain
theists) to the effect that there is something (e.g., God) that is
necessarily (or otherwise not dependently) existent. If the Mādhyamika
statement does not rule out the truth of such statements, then it
would be difficult to understand it as meaning anything (although
perhaps the radically "therapeutic" interpreter of Madhyamaka will
here bite the bullet and, well, argue that it is the very idea of
"meaning" anything that is to be jettisoned); but to say that the
Mādhyamika claim contradicts a truth-claim proffered by some theists
just is to say that the former claim, too, is proposed as true.
Recognizing that, one might urge that the universal scope of the
Mādhyamika claim entails that there is an important sense in which
Madhyamaka is constitutively anti-skeptical – that, indeed, Mādhyamika
arguments advance a finally metaphysical point. For example, one could
argue that what is at stake here is the properly transcendental fact
that emptiness (understood as the fact that things exist only
interdependently) is a condition of the possibility of any existents
and of any analysis thereof.
The question for the proponent of such a line of interpretation then
becomes: If "the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth,"
is it possible to think of this claim as itself ultimately true? It is
important to note, in this regard, that while Mādhyamikas
characteristically (indeed, constitutively) eschew the Ābhidharmika
idea that "ultimate truth" involves a domain of enumerable existents
regarding which claims are to be judged for their adequacy, Madhyamaka
nevertheless makes abundant reference to the "ultimate truth." One way
to make sense of this is to attribute to Madhyamaka a basically
deflationist account of truth – that is, one according to which
calling a claim "true" is to be explained not as predicating a
metaphysical property (such as "correspondence" with "ultimately
existent" things) of it, but simply as committing oneself to it. On
such a view, to the extent that the (Ābhidharmika) idea of "ultimate
truth" has been shown incoherent, all that remains is the level of
"truth" that is characterized by common-sense realism.
This interpretation has the advantage of fitting quite well with the
kind of traditional doxographical accounts (influentially developed,
early on, by the Indian Mādhyamika Bhāvaviveka) that figure
prominently in the Tibetan monastic curriculum. These represent the
schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy in an ascending hierarchy of
progressively more refined views, the understanding of each of which
requires having rightly understood its predecessors. On such an
account, Madhyamaka, though framed as an uncompromising critique of
Ābhidharmika Buddhism, nevertheless depends on the latter: if the
naive realism of non-Buddhas consists in thinking there is something
more real (paradigmatically, selves) underlying our experience of the
world, the realization of the "deflated" realism of Madhyamaka differs
from that (and is therefore transformative) only insofar as one has
first pursued to its limits the kind of reductionist exercise that
shows how unstable is our naive self-grasping. If one has not first
entertained the Ābhidharmika's reductionist approach, then there would
be no difference between the common-sense realism of the Mādhyamika,
and that of ordinary ignorant persons. But if one realizes the
necessary failure of the reductionist's privileged level of
description only after having entertained it, the resultant "realism"
will be inflected by the transformative understanding that our selves
are "real" in the only sense in which anything (even the purportedly
"ultimate" existents that are dharmas) can be real – that is,
relatively, dependently.
Another strategy (perhaps not mutually exclusive of the foregoing) is
to emphasize that what Mādhyamikas refute, under the heading of
"ultimate truth," is simply the idea of a privileged level of
description (in the form of a set of enumerable ontological
primitives) – but that the abstract fact of there being no such set is
itself really (indeed metaphysically) true. In that case, the salient
point is just that the truth of the Mādhyamika claim does not consist
in its reference to – its correspondence with – a specifiable domain
of objects. This reconstruction can be coupled with an understanding
of Mādhyamika arguments as basically transcendental arguments. Such an
interpretation makes good sense, at least, of what is surely one of
the most prominently recurrent rhetorical strategies of Nāgārjuna; so,
Nāgārjuna can be understood to argue that his various interlocutors'
objections are incoherent just insofar as these very objections
presuppose the truth of Nāgārjuna's claims. Emptiness is not only not
mutually exclusive of the Four Noble Truths – it is a condition of the
possibility thereof. Emptiness is, moreover, a condition of the
possibility even of an opponent's denying this; for any analysis or
denial at all (indeed, any cognitive act) consists, in the first
instance, in some relation.
Perhaps more suggestively, such an interpretation can also help map
the finally ethical concerns of Madhyamaka onto some contemporary
arguments concerning reductionist accounts of the person. In this
regard, it was noted that the Ābhidharmika trajectory of Buddhist
philosophy can be understood as analogous to various projects in
cognitive science. In the idiom of the latter, then, it could be said
that the Ābhidharmika idea is that there is, "conventionally," an
intentional level of description (variously characterized as the
"common-sense" view, "folk psychology," etc.); and, "ultimately," a
scientific level of description, comprising the ontological primitives
that alone are said "really" to exist, and exhaustively to explain the
former level. One line of critique developed against such approaches
is to argue that anyone offering an exhaustively "impersonal,"
non-intentional description of (what we think of as) persons can be
shown necessarily to presuppose precisely the personal, intentional
level of description that is purportedly explained. Similarly, the
upshot of the Mādhyamika argument that the world is (as expressed
above) "irreducibly conventional" is that the level of description at
which "persons" are in play cannot coherently be thought to be
eliminable. Many of the commentator Candrakīrti's arguments can be
said, without too great a stretch, to make something like this point,
recurrently urging against various interlocutors that any purported
attempt to explain the conventional world (in terms that, if the
proposed account is to have any explanatory purchase, must not
themselves be conventional) inevitably founders on the unavoidability
of presupposing the conventional senses of words.
Suffice it to say that the philosophical and exegetical issues in play
here are highly complex, and that almost any attempt at understanding
the texts of Nāgārjuna and his commentators is likely to require a
considerable effort of rational reconstruction – which perhaps
explains the enduring appeal of this trajectory of thought.
4. Historical Development of Indian Schools of Interpretation
The Indian Buddhist tradition attests two broad streams in the
interpretation of Nāgārjuna's thought, corresponding roughly to what
later Tibetan interpreters would refer to as the "Prāsaṅgika" and
"Svātantrika" accounts of Madhyamaka. Interpreters of the former sort
are so-called because of their view that Madhyamaka should be advanced
only by reducing an opponent's arguments to absurdity. Nāgārjuna is,
on this view, to be interpreted as showing only the unwanted
consequences ("prasaṅga") entailed by his opponents' claims, and not
as defending any philosophical "thesis" (pratijñā) of his own.
Svātantrikas, in contrast, are so-called because of their
characteristic view that Nāgārjuna's verses require restatement as
formally valid inferences (svatantra-anumāna) whose conclusions are to
be affirmed. Much contemporary debate has concerned whether these
divergent lines of interpretation reflect only differing dialectical
strategies, or whether (as influential Tibetan proponents of the
distinction claim) they involve significantly different ontological
presuppositions. Although the characterizations of these two
trajectories of interpretation are not without basis in the antecedent
Indian texts, this doxographic lens is of interest partly for what it
can tell us about some characteristically Tibetan preoccupations (and
about the influence of certain schools of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy
on the contemporary interpretation of Indian Buddhist thought).
Names traditionally associated with the "Prāsaṅgika" stream of
interpretation include Āryadeva, who is traditionally regarded as
Nāgārjuna's direct disciple (making his date close to Nāgārjuna's),
and who wrote the Catuḥśataka ("400 Verses") – a text that is
particularly important insofar as the divergent interpretations of it
by the commentators Dharmapāla (530-561) and Candrakīrti are sometimes
taken to herald a decisive split between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra (see
Tillemans 1990); Buddhapālita (fl. c. 500), the author of a complete
commentary (now extant only in Tibetan translation) on the MMK; and
Candrakīrti (c. 600-650), whose Prasannapadā ("Clear Words") – the
only commentary on the MMK known to be extant in Sanskrit – preserves
the Sanskrit text of Nāgārjuna's verse text.
Candrakīrti is also the author of, among other works, the
Madhyamakāvatāra ("Introduction to Madhyamaka"), an independent work
(with auto-commentary) that represents the principal text for the
"Madhyamaka" component of many Tibetan monastic curricula. This work
is structured on the model of texts like the Daśabhūmika Sūtra, with
chapters corresponding to that text's progression in a bodhisattva's
mastery of ten "perfections" (pāramitā). The sixth chapter (fittingly
corresponding to prajñāpāramitā, the "perfection of wisdom") is by far
the longest and the most philosophically rich, comprising, inter alia,
important Mādhyamika critiques of Yogācāra.
Significant later Prāsaṅgikas include Śāntideva (fl. early eighth
century), the author of the Bodhicaryāvatāra ("Introduction to the
Conduct of Awakening"), an eloquent and popular text whose difficult
ninth chapter (helpfully elaborated by the commentary of
Prajñākaramati, who likely flourished in the tenth century) comprises
important Mādhyamika arguments; and Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982-1054; more
popularly known as "Atiśa"), who figured prominently in the
transmission of Indian Buddhism to Tibet, where he lived when he wrote
the Bodhipathapradīpa ("A Lamp for the Path to Awakening").
The "Svātantrika" line of interpretation originates with Bhāvaviveka
(c. 500-570; his name is also reported as "Bhāviveka," and he is often
referred to as "Bhavya"), the author not only of a commentary on the
MMK – the Prajñāpradīpa, now extant only in Tibetan and Chinese
translations – but also of an independent work, the
Madhyamakahṛdayakārikās, "Verses on the Heart of Madhyamaka," with an
auto-commentary entitled Tarkajvāla ("Blaze of Logic"). Other
significant exponents of this line of thought include Jñānagarbha (fl.
early eighth century), who is traditionally regarded as the teacher of
Śāntarakṣita (725-788). The latter is the author of the
Madhyamakālaṃkāra ("Ornament of Madhyamaka"), a relatively concise
text elaborating Śāntarakṣita's characteristic synthesis of Madhyamaka
and Yogācāra. Śāntarakṣita is perhaps more widely known for the
Tattvasaṃgraha ("Summa of Quiddities"), a massive treatise that takes
on a huge range of Indian philosophical doctrines – and that quotes
extensively from Brahmanical and other Buddhist philosophers, making
it an important source of fragments from Indian works that do not,
like the Tattvasaṃgraha, survive in Sanskrit.
The latter text is (like the Madhyamakālaṃkāra) helpfully illuminated
by a commentary (the Tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā) by Śāntarakṣita's student
and disciple Kamalaśīla (c.740-795). The latter traveled with his
teacher to Tibet, where both thinkers figure prominently in the
founding events of Tibetan Buddhist thought. Kamalaśīla is, for
example, traditionally regarded by Tibetans as having advocated the
"gradualist" position in a famous debate at the bSam-yas monastery
with a Chinese exponent of the Ch'an ("Zen") understanding of "sudden
enlightenment." It was Kamalaśīla's victory in this debate that
established the "gradualist" understanding as at least officially
normative for most schools of Tibetan Buddhism; while the occurrence
of the debate itself may be apocryphal, such a position is surely
reflected in Kamalaśīla's three Bhāvanākrama ("stages of cultivation")
texts, written in Tibet.
5. More on the Svātantrika-Prāsaṅgika Difference: Madhyamaka and
Buddhist Epistemology
As indicated, the so-called Svātantrika trajectory of Madhyamaka
constitutively involves recourse to the tools of formal logic and
inference, evincing a characteristic concern to restate Nāgārjuna's
arguments as formally valid inferences. More generally, it can be said
that this approach is informed by Bhāvaviveka's use of the logic and
epistemology of Dignāga (c. 480-540), who influentially appealed to
the idiom of pramāṇavidyā (the "discipline of logic and epistemology")
in advancing the Buddhist position – and who was, indeed, among the
most important figures in developing the broadly Sanskritic conceptual
vocabulary that would predominate in the subsequent course of Indian
philosophy. Similarly, such later Svātantrikas as Śāntarakṣita were
informed by the project of Dignāga's influential expositor Dharmakīrti
(c. 600-660), and figures such as Dharmakīrti and Śāntarakṣita would
be of decisive importance for the remaining course of the Indian
Buddhist philosophical tradition's life. (Candrakīrti, in contrast,
would exercise little influence in India, though he re-emerges with
the Tibetan tradition's interest in him.)
The dispute between these lines of interpretation crystallizes around
the figures of Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka, and Candrakīrti – and can be
seen, in particular, in their respective elaborations of Nāgārjuna's
MMK 1.1 ("There do not exist, anywhere at all, any existents
whatsoever, arisen either from themselves or from something else,
either from both or altogether without cause"). This verse basically
deploys a standard tool in the Mādhyamika arsenal: the "tetralemma"
(catuṣkoṭi), a four-fold statement that is meant to identify all
possible relations between any category and its putative explananda
(e.g., "the same," "different," "both the same and different,"
"neither the same nor different") – with the standard Mādhyamika
denial of all four horns of the tetralemma meant as an exhaustive
refutation of the efficacy and coherence of the category in question.
(One modern interpretive discussion concerns whether or not this
apparent violation of bivalent logic shows Mādhyamikas to have
presupposed a non-standard sort of logic.)
Buddhapālita's "prāsaṅgika" commentary on this verse does nothing more
than make clear (what he takes to be) the absurd consequences that
would be entailed by affirming any one of the positions here rejected.
For example, the view that existents originate intrinsically – a
position traditionally understood to express the Indian Sāṃkhya
school's characteristic view that effects are always latent within
their causes – is to be denied "since there would be no point in the
arising of already existent things." That is, an affirmation of the
causation of something from itself entails that the thing in question
already exists, in which case, its coming-into-being could not be
thought to require causal explanation.
In his commentary on the MMK, Bhāvaviveka then specifically took
Buddhapālita to task, urging that Buddhapālita's elaboration of the
argument was unreasonable "because no reason and no example are given
and because faults stated by the opponent are not answered" – which is
to say, because the recognized terms of a formally stated inference
(as that had been thematized by Sanskritic philosophers such as
Dignāga) were not present. In contrast, then, to Buddhapālita,
Bhāvaviveka offers a formally valid statement of the reasoning behind
Nāgārjuna's denial of the first horn of the verse's tetralemma:
"[Thesis:] It is certain that the inner sense fields (āyatanas) do not
ultimately originate from themselves; [Reason:] because they exist
[already], [Example:] like consciousness." Among the characteristic
features of Bhāvaviveka's restatement here is his making explicit the
qualifier "ultimately" (or "essentially," svabhāvataḥ); that is,
Nāgārjuna is here said to deny only that something is the case
essentially or ultimately. While the first horn of this tetralemma
("existents are arisen from themselves") perhaps requires no such
qualification in order for its denial to be intelligible, many
interpreters would agree that such a qualification must be added
particularly in order for the denial of the second (which concerns
that origination of things from other existents) to make any sense;
for it is surely counter-intuitive to think that we cannot even
conventionally speak of the origination of existents from one another.
A great many of Nāgārjuna's prima facie counter-intuitive refutations
can be understood to make more sense if they are qualified as
concerning what is "ultimately" or "essentially" the case (and not
taken simpliciter).
A considerable portion of the first chapter of Candrakīrti's
Prasannapadā is then given over to defending Buddhapālita's as the
right way to proceed, and to criticizing Bhāvaviveka's interpretive
procedure as misguided. How, then, are we to make sense, without
Bhāvaviveka's characteristic qualification, of Nāgārjuna's denial of
the second horn of the tetralemma – of his denial, that is, that
things originate from other existents? On Candrakīrti's reading (which
follows Buddhapālita's), the absurdity that would be entailed by
thinking otherwise would be that a sprout could just as well be
produced from the coals of a fire as from a seed; and, conversely, if
a sprout cannot be produced from the coals of a fire, it cannot be
said to be produced from a seed, either. Candrakīrti's argument here
is usefully understood as involving a priori (as contra a posteriori)
analysis; that is, the argument short-circuits any appeal to what we
experience to be the case, instead analyzing only the concepts
presupposed in how we explain experience – and the point is to reduce
to absurdity any argument that presupposes the independence of such
concepts (that presupposes, in other words, that any such concepts
might afford a privileged perspective on what there is). Read this
way, the argument turns simply on the definition of "other," and the
point is that the general concept of "otherness" leaves us with no
principled way to know which other things are relevantly connected to
the thing whose arising we seek to explain, and we are left to suppose
that anything that is "other" than the latter (even the coals of a
fire) could give rise to it.
Although many Tibetan exegetes were (as noted) inclined to see the
dispute here as turning on subtle ontological presuppositions, this
can be hard to glean from the Indian texts upon which the dispute is
based. The characteristically Svātantrika appeal to the idiom of logic
and epistemology can, however, be understood as meant to address what
are real philosophical problems in the Mādhyamika project as that is
understood by Candrakīrti – just as Candrakīrti, for his part, can be
understood as having philosophically principled reasons for refusing
the epistemological tools characteristically deployed by Bhāvaviveka
and his heirs. What is at issue here is, once again, the question of
how we are to regard the "conventionally" described world once the
idea that there can be an "ultimately" true description thereof has
been jettisoned. Nāgārjuna himself had emphasized the importance of
some kind of relation in this regard, saying, for example, that
"without relying on convention, the ultimate is not taught; without
having understood the ultimate, nirvāṇa is not apprehended" (MMK
24.10). In other words, the (relative) reality of the conventionally
described world is a condition of the possibility of our coming to
understand what is ultimately the case; but if what is understood
thereby is in fact that there is nothing "more real" than the
conventionally described world – that, e.g., there are no ontological
primitives that are not themselves subject to the conditions that
obtain in the world – then it might be thought that, as it were,
"anything goes."
The philosophical worry, then, is that if Mādhyamika arguments are not
understood in something like the way that Svātantrikas propose,
Madhyamaka could degenerate into a thoroughgoing and pernicious
conventionalism. The broadly Svātantrika line of interpretation
attempts to address this worry by arguing that even if all discourse
(including that of the Mādhyamika) perforce takes place at the
"conventional" level, it is nevertheless the case that some
"conventions" are more nearly true than others – and that the
epistemological tools developed by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti give us the
resources to sort these out. The Svātantrika Jñānagarbha (followed, in
this regard, by his student Śāntarakṣita) emphasized that we can
distinguish between "true convention" (tathya-saṃvṛti) and "false
convention" (mithyā-saṃvṛti).
In his refusal of the characteristically "Svātantrika" use of the
conceptual tools of Buddhist epistemology, Candrakīrti need not be
understood as conceding simply that anything goes. Candrakīrti's
point, rather, would seem to be to emphasize that there can be no
explanatory categories that do not themselves exhibit the same
characteristics (chiefly, the fact of being dependently originated)
already on display in the conventionally described world; and any
constitutively analytic sort of reasoning (such as that exemplified by
the discourse of epistemology) just is a search for something beyond
what is already given in conventional discourse. What is
"conventionally" true, then, is (by definition) just our conventions –
and any demand for some account or explanation of these could be
thought to provide some purchase only to the extent that what is
demanded is something that is not itself "conventional." But there
cannot be any such discourse, any more than there can be an existent
that is not dependently originated; the two claims are related insofar
as all that could count as a discursively exhaustive explanation would
be one that adduces something that is not itself subject to the
constraints that it explains – which is to say, something not
dependently originated. Although this may represent an adequate
reconstruction of his position, Candrakīrti's emphasis on the
definitively "non-analytic" character of conventional discourse can,
nevertheless, reasonably be thought to leave his project vulnerable to
charges of incoherence, and it can be seen that the issues in dispute
between Svātantrikas and Prāsaṅgika are the same paradoxes that
bedevil Madhyamaka more generally.
6. Madhyamaka in Tibet
Indian Madhyamaka figures decisively in most of the Tibetan schools of
Buddhist philosophy, which tend to agree in judging Madhyamaka to
represent the pinnacle of Buddhist thought. There are, however,
interesting historical and philosophical developments that greatly
complicate this picture. For example, while the scholastic traditions
of Indian Buddhist philosophy were first introduced to Tibet by the
"Svātantrika" Mādhyamikas Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, many schools of
Tibetan Buddhism nevertheless claim Candrakīrti's ("Prāsaṅgika")
interpretation as authoritative – a fact partly owing, perhaps, to the
influence of Atiśa in the so-called "second dissemination" of Indian
Buddhism to Tibet (that is, the period during which Indian Buddhism
was decisively established in Tibet, and during which the systematic
translation of Indian Buddhist texts into Tibetan was brought to
fruition). However, the characteristically Tibetan emphasis on
"Vajrayāna" (that is, tantric) forms of practice arguably promotes
greater recourse to the idiom of Yogācāra than would be encouraged by
Candrakīrti. In addition, there are, as noted, philosophical reasons
for qualifying some of Candrakīrti's positions. Hence, even those
Tibetan schools (such as the dGe-lugs) that most forcefully assert the
authoritative character of "Prāsaṅgika" Madhyamaka tend, for example,
to support their interpretation with significant studies in the
Buddhist epistemological tradition – a move, as noted, definitively
characteristic of the "Svātantrika" approach.
The attempt thus to wed Madhyamaka to the philosophical project of
Dignāga and Dharmakīrti is worth appreciating not only because it is
intrinsically interesting, but because, particularly in the United
States in the latter part of the 20th century, a great many modern
interpreters of Indian Madhyamaka have been influenced by
characteristically Tibetan appropriations of this tradition. While
this has arguably led to some distortions in the exegesis particularly
of Candrakīrti's texts, there is much to recommend the Tibetans'
systematic (as opposed to historical) presentation of Madhyamaka in
relation to the other schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy. As
indicated, a distinctive feature of characteristically Tibetan
presentations of Buddhist philosophy is the use of doxographical
digests elaborating what are called "established conclusions" (grub
mtha'; this translates the Sanskrit siddhānta).
On this model, the various schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy
(principally consisting, according to such presentations, in the two
"Ābhidharmika" schools of the Vaibhāṣikas and Sautrāntikas, and the
two "Mahāyāna" schools of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka) are represented in
an ascending hierarchy of progressively more refined positions, the
proper understanding of each of which requires understanding its
predecessors. Ascent through the hierarchy is characterized, most
basically, by the progressive elimination of ontological commitments:
the two Ābhidharmika schools divide over the question of what are to
be admitted as "dharmas" qualifying for inclusion in a final ontology;
Yogācāra further pares down this list to nothing but mental events;
the "Svātantrika" Mādhyamikas are represented as retaining only the
vestigial ontological commitments that are thought to be entailed by
their characteristic deference to the dialectical tools of
epistemology; until, with the "Prāsaṅgika" iteration of Madhyamaka, we
arrive at the school of thought for which the set of "ultimately
existent" (paramārthasat) phenomena is an empty set.
The effect of this is to throw our attention back to the only "set" of
existents with any remaining content: the conventionally described
world, now understood as ineliminable. Hence, on this view, there is
the avoidance of (what Mādhyamikas are always trying to eschew) the
extreme of nihilism or "eliminativism" (ucchedavāda); but there is
also the (constitutively Buddhist) avoidance of the extreme of
"eternalism," insofar as the effect of cultivating the Mādhyamika
insight only as the culminating stage in a progression is (it is
claimed) to have driven home the realization that the self exists
(like everything "conventional") only relatively or dependently. Once
the project of a privileged level of description has been abandoned,
the "common-sense realism" that remains can be seen to differ from
that of the unenlightened "by virtue of its being adopted in full
cognizance of the progression through the intervening stages"
(Siderits 2003, 185).
The same insight is reflected in the basic monastic curriculum of
dGe-lugs-pa monasteries, which is structured around five topics
defined by representative Indian texts: The Vinaya, or Buddhist
monastic code, as represented by the Vinaya Sūtra of Guṇaprabha;
Abhidharma, as represented by the Abhidharmakośa of Vasubandhu; logic
and epistemology, as represented by the Pramāṇavārttika of
Dharmakīrti; Madhyamaka, as represented by Candrakīrti's
Madhyamakāvatāra; and the stages on the path to enlightenment, as
represented by the Abhisamayālaṃkāra attributed to Maitreya. In this
way, the study of the Madhyamaka tradition of Buddhist philosophy
comes only in the context of an overarching education in a complete
Buddhist world-view, such that characteristically Mādhyamika teachings
concerning "emptiness" are – like the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras whose
retrieval by Nāgārjuna was thought to introduce Mahāyāna as
representing the Buddha's definitive teaching – made intelligible by
the necessarily propaedeutic earlier teachings. Above all, it is the
finally ethical character of Mādhyamika thought that is encouraged by
this pedagogical system; for the characteristically Mādhyamika claim
that "all dharmas are empty" – that, in other words, Abhidharma's
reductionist account of the person cannot finally be made coherent –
cannot be understood as nihilistic if it has been made clear that the
upshot of it is to return our attention to the irreducibly
conventional world in which persons live and suffer.
Tibetan tradition preserves, however, not only a model for the
integration of Madhyamaka philosophy into a structured set of
transformative religious practices, but also a great deal of
innovative and sophisticated philosophical elaboration of Mādhyamika
thought. For example, the prolific scholar Tsong-kha-pa (1357-1419) –
originator of the influential reformist school that would style itself
the "dGe-lugs" ("virtuous way") – did much to integrate the Prāsaṅgika
Madhyamaka of Candrakīrti with the understanding and teaching of
Buddhist epistemology stemming from Dharmakīrti. Tsong-kha-pa's works
(such as the massive Lam rim chen mo, "Great [treatise on] the Stages
of the Path") also bring considerable sophistication to bear on the
question of how Madhyamaka ought to be understood in relation to
Yogācāra. Critics of Tsong-kha-pa – such as, notably, the Sa-skya-pa
scholar Go-ram-pa bSod-nams seng-ge (1429-1489) – stridently condemned
his confidence that the discourse of epistemology could bring
Mādhyamika analysis into contact with ultimate reality. On Go-ram-pa's
reading, such confidence amounts to the claim that the discursive
thought that understands "ultimate truth" is itself ultimately true –
which is to confuse the (necessarily conventional) activity of
thinking about ultimate truth with what it is that such thought is
about. Go-ram-pa claims that Tsong-kha-pa's account of Madhyamaka
entails the nihilistic conclusion that what is ultimately true is
simply what is conventionally true. This Tibetan debate, then,
recognizably addresses the perennially vexed issues that go to the
heart of Madhyamaka: those concerning how we are to understand the
relation between ultimate and conventional truth, in the context of a
claim to the effect that "the ultimate truth is that there is no
ultimate truth."
7. Madhyamaka in East Asia
It is frequently observed that while Indo-Tibetan schools of Buddhist
philosophy characteristically developed around the systematic
treatises (śāstras) of historical thinkers like Nāgārjuna and Dignāga,
Chinese Buddhist philosophy instead centers on (and its schools are
largely defined by) the interpretation of particular Buddhist sūtras.
Whatever truth there may be in this, it is certainly the case that a
great deal of systematic Indian Buddhist philosophy from the mature
scholastic phase of the tradition (roughly, from the sixth century on)
was never translated into Chinese. Although the texts of (say)
Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, and Dignāga are available in Chinese
translation, the Chinese canon does not include the works of such
thinkers as Candrakīrti, Dharmakīrti, or Śāntarakṣita – the later
Mādhyamikas and epistemologists whose works decisively shaped
Indo-Tibetan traditions of interpretation. Accordingly, the
development of Madhyamaka in China centers on a somewhat different
group of texts – all of them translated by the great translator
Kumārajīva (350-409), whose efforts figure prominently in the Chinese
reception of Madhyamaka. So, the Chinese analogue of the Indian
Madhyamaka school was originally styled San-lun, the "Three Śāstra"
school, so called for its reliance upon three of Kumārajīva's
translations. Only one of these (the MMK, here called Chung lun,
"Madhyamakaśāstra"; Taishō 1564) has an extant Sanskrit antecedent.
The other two – the Dvādaśanikāyaśāstra (Shih erh men lun, Taishō
1568), attributed to Nāgārjuna, and the Śata[ka]śāstra (Pai lun,
Taishō 1569), attributed to Āryadeva – are extant neither in Sanskrit
nor in Tibetan translation.
It was, however, arguably another treatise attributed to Nāgārjuna
(and also "translated" by Kumārajīva) that was ultimately to have
greater influence on East Asian interpretations of Madhyamaka: the
Ta-chih-tu lun, or *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa Śāstra ("Treatise which
is a Teaching on the Great Perfection of Wisdom [Sūtra]"). This text –
a massive summa of Buddhist doctrine, comparable in scope to the
*Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi (which is ostensibly a digest and compilation
of several Indian commentaries on one of the works by Vasubandhu that
is foundational for Yogācāra) – is extant in no other translation than
Kumārajīva's, and comprises a great deal of material that is not
easily reconciled with what is taught in Nāgārjuna's MMK. However,
despite the scholarly consensus to the effect that this text is not
authentically attributed to Nāgārjuna, East Asian authors citing
Nāgārjuna tend most frequently to cite Kumārajīva's text (and not the
MMK). The reasons for this are, along with one of the salient features
of characteristically East Asian interpretations of Nāgārjuna,
reflected in a comment by the Japanese scholar Junjirō Takakusu, who
observed that while such Mādhyamika texts as the MMK are "much
inclined to be negativistic idealism," in the Ta-chih-tu lun "we see
that [Nāgārjuna] establishes his monistic view much more affirmatively
than in any other text" (Takakusu 1949: 100).
Takakusu's assessment of the MMK as "negativistic" arguably relates to
the ways in which characteristically East Asian interpretations of
Madhyamaka have been (not surprisingly) influenced by the vicissitudes
of Chinese translations from Sanskrit. For example, it has been noted
(by, e.g., Swanson 1989: 14) that Chinese terms centrally associated
with the two truths – yu ("existence" or "being") and wu
("non-existence" or non-being"), identified, respectively, with
saṃvṛtisatya (conventional truth) and paramārthasatya (ultimate truth)
– had strongly ontological implications that can alter the sense of
characteristically Mādhyamika claims (originally stated in Sanskrit)
when those were translated into Chinese. In particular, the
ontologically "negative" sense of the term wu has arguably had the
effect of recommending that Mādhyamika claims regarding emptiness be
taken (notwithstanding Nāgārjuna's repeated cautions in this regard)
as rather more nihilistic than was intended.
We can consider, in this regard, chapter 24, verse 18 of Nāgārjuna's
MMK – a pivotal verse that may be rendered: "We call that which is
dependent origination [pratītyasamutpāda] emptiness [śūnyatā]. That
[emptiness,] a relative indication [upādāya prajñapti], is itself the
middle path [madhyamā pratipad]." This often cited (and variously
translated) verse is significant chiefly for its asserting that the
authentic "middle path" – and hence (given the centrality of the
middle way trope in Buddhist thought) the authentically Buddhist
doctrine – lies in realizing the identity of three terms: dependent
origination, emptiness, and "dependent designation" or "relative
indication" (upādāya prajñapti). The semantic range of the latter term
is such as to suggest that emptiness-cum-dependent origination is
itself "conventional," and one upshot of the verse is therefore to
express, in effect, the idea of the "emptiness of emptiness." More
straightforwardly, though, this verse clearly represents one of the
countless occasions on which Nāgārjuna is concerned to emphasize that
by "emptiness" he means simply "dependent origination."
On one characteristically East Asian interpretation of this verse
(that of the modern Japanese scholar Gadjin Nagao), however, we are to
understand here that the verse's initial predication ("we call that
which is dependent origination emptiness") amounts to a negation of
(the ontologically "positive" phenomenon which is) dependent
origination. As Nagao states this idea, "This pratītya-samutpāda dies
in the second [quarter verse]." The second predication – which
characterizes this "emptiness" as a "relative indication" – then
amounts to a return to the ontologically "positive." On this reading,
then, the verse "is dialectical, moving from affirmation to negation
and again to affirmation." (Nagao 1991: 193-94) This "dialectical"
reading of a quintessentially Mādhyamika claim is frequently
encountered in modern Japanese scholarship – a fact that arguably
reflects the extent to which many Japanese scholars (even those who
have developed deep acquaintance with the Sanskrit texts of Indian
Buddhism) have their initial grounding in the characteristically East
Asian traditions of interpretation in which the Ta-chih-tu lun of
Kumārajīva is paramount.
Another characteristic preoccupation of East Asian interpreters of
Madhyamaka is one also evident in some of the Indo-Tibetan traditions
of interpretation: that of attempting to harmonize Madhyamaka and
Yogācāra. In the East Asian case, the fact that so many Buddhist
interpreters of Madhyamaka should attempt – notwithstanding the extent
to which many Indian Mādhyamika and Yogācāra texts are framed as
mutually polemical – to develop a synthesis of these two great schools
of Mahāyāna philosophy partly reflects the predominance of Yogācāra in
East Asian Buddhist thought. If, however, Madhyamaka philosophy was
largely eclipsed by Yogācāra (and more importantly, by other
indigenous developments) in the East Asian context, it nevertheless
arguably lives on in the enigmatic discourse of Ch'an/Zen Buddhism
that many take to be quintessentially East Asian. While any Mādhyamika
influence on Zen is surely indirect, the latter tradition's particular
debt to the Prajñāpāramitā literature (the Vajracchedikā, or
"Diamond," Sūtra figures most importantly here) perhaps explains why
many modern observers are inclined to see affinities with Madhyamaka.
8. References and Further Reading
* Ames, William L. 1986. "Buddhapālita's Exposition of the
Madhyamaka." Journal of Indian Philosophy 14: 313-348.
* Ames, William L. 1993-94. "Bhāvaviveka's Prajñāpradīpa: A
Translation of Chapter One: 'Examination of Causal Conditions'
(Pratyaya)," [in two parts], Journal of Indian Philosophy 21: 209-259;
22: 93-135.
o These articles provide a good point of access to the
interpretations of Nāgārjuna ventured by two of his earliest
commentators (the two discussed at length in the commentary of
Candrakīrti).
* Arnold, Dan. 2005. Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology
in South Asian Philosophy of Religion. New York: Columbia University
Press.
o Part 3 of this work makes a case (based on an engagement
with Candrakīrti's critique of the Buddhist epistemologist Dignāga)
for the interpretation of Madhyamaka as involving transcendental
arguments.
* Bhattacharya, Kamaleswar. 1990. The Dialectical Method of
Nāgārjuna: Vigrahavyāvartanī. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
o Contains (along with an edition of the Sanskrit text) a
reliable translation of one of Nāgārjuna's major works.
* Blumenthal, James. 2004. The Ornament of the Middle Way: A Study
of the Madhyamaka Thought of Śāntarakṣita. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion
Publications.
o A translation and extensive study (together with a
translated dGe-lugs-pa commentary) of Śāntarakṣita's
Madhyamakālaṃkāra.
* Burton, David F. 1999. Emptiness Appraised: A Critical Study of
Nāgārjuna's Philosophy. London: Curzon.
o Argues that despite Nāgārjuna's expressed intentions, his
arguments entail nihilistic conclusions.
* Cabezón, José Ignacio. 1992. A Dose of Emptiness: An Annotated
Translation of the sTong thun chen mo of mKhas grub dGe legs dpal
bzang. Albany: SUNY Press.
o This extensively annotated and reliable translation makes
available a representative example of a Tibetan dGe-lugs-pa
interpretation of Madhyamaka (this one by one of Tsong-kha-pa's two
major disciples).
* Chimpa, Lama, and Alaka Chattopadhyaya, trans. 1970. Tāranātha's
History of Buddhism in India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
o A useful translation of a traditional history of the
Indian Buddhist tradition, containing representative accounts of the
careers and works of important Indian thinkers.
* Conze, Edward, trans. 1975. The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom,
with the divisions of the Abhisamayālaṅkāra. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
o A useful point of access to the paradoxical style of
discourse that is characteristic of the "Prajñāpāramitā" literature
that figures in Nāgārjuna's background.
* Crosby, Kate, and Andrew Skilton, trans. 1995. The
Bodhicaryāvatāra. New York: Oxford University Press.
o A translation of the major work of Śāntideva, with an
introduction and annotations.
* Dreyfus, Georges. 2003. The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The
Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
o An insightful study of the pedagogical context for the
Tibetan interpretation and transmission of Madhyamaka.
* Dreyfus, Georges, and Sara McClintock, eds. 2003. The
Svātantrika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction: What Difference Does a Difference
Make? Boston: Wisdom Publications.
o A collection of scholarly essays representative of the
current state of debate on this division of Madhyamaka, with attention
both to this as a Tibetan doxographical category, and to matters of
interpretation regarding the antecedent Indian texts.
* Garfield, Jay L., trans. 1995. The Fundamental Wisdom of the
Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. New York: Oxford
University Press.
o Though translated from the Tibetan (and not from the
extant Sanskrit), this is the most accessible of the available
translations of Nāgārjuna's foundational text – and far and away the
most philosophically sophisticated and illuminating.
* Hayes, Richard P. 1994. "Nāgārjuna's Appeal." Journal of Indian
Philosophy 22: 299-378.
o Argues that Nāgārjuna's works centrally involve an
equivocation on the word svabhāva.
* Huntington, C. W., with Geshe Namgyal Wangchen. 1989. The
Emptiness of Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian Mādhyamika.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
o An annotated translation of Candrakīrti's
Madhyamakāvatāra, with a lengthy introduction that makes a case for
the interpretation of Madhyamaka along lines suggested by
poststructuralist philosophy.
* Iida Shotaro. 1980. Reason and Emptiness: A Study in Logic and
Mysticism. Tokyo: Hokuseido.
o A study, with texts and translations, of major works of Bhāvaviveka.
* Jha, Ganganath, trans. 1986. The Tattvasaṁgraha of Shāntarakṣita
with the Commentary of Kamalashīla. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
(Reprint; first published in Gaekwad's Oriental Series, 1937-1939.)
o A relatively inaccessible (but nonetheless complete)
translation of this major work by Śāntarakṣita.
* La Vallée Poussin, Louis de, ed. 1970. Mūlamadhyamakakārikās
(Mādhyamikasūtras) de Nāgārjuna, avec la Prasannapadā Commentaire de
Candrakīrti. Bibliotheca Buddhica, Vol. IV. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag.
(Reprint; originally published 1903-1913.)
o This work warrants mention as the standard edition of the
foundational text of Madhyamaka.
* Lamotte, Etienne, trans. 1944-1980. Le Traité de la Grande Vertu
de Sagesse. 5 volumes. Louvain: Insitut orientaliste, Bibliothèque de
l'Université de Louvain.
o The characteristically extensive annotations alone make
this monumental work a treasure trove. Despite its vastness, this
represents only a partial translation of the Ta-chih-tu Lun
(*Mahāprajñāpārmitāśāstra) of Nāgārjuna/Kumārajīva.
* Lang, Karen. 1986. Āryadeva's Catuḥśataka: On the Bodhisattva's
Cultivation of Merit and Knowledge. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.
o A reliable translation of the major work of Āryadeva.
* Lindtner, Chr. 1987. Nagarjuniana: Studies in the Writings and
Philosophy of Nāgārjuna. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. (Reprint;
first published in Copenhagen, Institute for indisk filologi, 1982.)
o A study of the works that are (and are not) appropriately
attributed to Nāgārjuna, with editions and translations of several.
* Murti, T. R. V. 1960. The Central Philosophy of Buddhism: A
Study of the Mādhyamika System. Second edition. London: George Allen
and Unwin.
o An important early study of Madhyamaka, representing one
of a few influential neo-Kantian interpretations thereof.
* Nagao Gadjin. 1991. Mādhyamika and Yogācāra: A Study of Mahāyāna
Philosophies. Trans. Leslie S. Kawamura. Albany: SUNY Press.
o A selection of translated essays representative of the
approach and legacy of this important Japanese scholar.
* Ramanan, K. Venkata. 1975. Nāgārjuna's Philosophy as presented
in the Mahā-Prajñāpāramitā-Śāstra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
(Reprint; first published Charles Tuttle, 1966.)
o This work is useful for its making accessible the contents
and style of the text (extant only in Kumārajīva's Chinese
translation) that most influenced the East Asian reception of
Madhyamaka. (Ramanan is in the scholarly minority in accepting the
Chinese tradition's attribution of the text to Nāgārjuna.)
* Ruegg, David Seyfort. 1981. The Literature of the Madhyamaka
School of Philosophy in India. A History of Indian Literature (ed. Jan
Gonda), Vol. VII, Fasc. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
o This authoritative work on the history and texts of Indian
Madhyamaka is the standard reference work on the subject.
* Siderits, Mark. 2003. Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy:
Empty Persons. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
o Chapters 6-9 develop a sophisticated philosophical
reconstruction of Madhyamaka (here characterized as a philosophically
"anti-realist" position), which is represented as constitutively
related to the reductionism of Ābhidharmika Buddhism (treated in the
first half of the book). A difficult work that can seem to owe more to
analytic philosophy than to Indian Buddhism, but an exceptionally
sensitive account of the issue of truth vis-à-vis Madhyamaka. In
particular, Siderits argues for a version of Madhyamaka as involving a
"deflationist" account of truth (here called "semantic non-dualism").
* Sopa, Geshe Lhundup, and Jeffrey Hopkins, trans., Cutting
Through Appearances: The Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism. 2nd
ed. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1989.
o Includes a somewhat inaccessible translation of a standard
Tibetan doxographical text, which is useful for a sense of how
Madhyamaka is represented by Tibetans in relation to other Buddhist
schools of thought.
* Sprung, Mervyn, trans. 1979. Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way:
The Essential Chapters from the Prasannapadā of Candrakīrti. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
o Currently the closest thing to a complete Western-language
translation of Candrakīrti's text (hence, the translation also
comprises most of Nāgārjuna's MMK). While not an altogether reliable
translation, this provides some access to the discourse of
Candrakīrti.
* Stcherbatsky, Th. 1927. The Conception of Buddhist Nirvāṇa.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989. (Reprint.)
o This early work includes a dated and eccentric (but
nonetheless useful) translation of the first chapter of Candrakīrti's
Prasannapadā. Stcherbatsky influentially advanced a broadly
neo-Kantian interpretation of Madhyamaka.
* Swanson, Paul L. 1989. Foundations of T'ien-T'ai Philosophy: The
Flowering of the Two Truths Theory in Chinese Buddhism. Berkeley:
Asian Humanities Press.
o An accessible study of the East Asian reception and
interpretation of Madhyamaka.
* Takakusu Junjirō. 1949. The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975. (Reprint; first published by the
University of Hawaii.)
o A concise presentation of the various schools of Buddhist
philosophy as they are reckoned in East Asian traditions. The
presentation of Madhyamaka ("Sanron," the "Three Treatise" school) is
at pp.99-111.
* Thurman, Robert. 1991. The Central Philosophy of Tibet: A Study
and Translation of Jey Tsong Khapa's Essence of True Eloquence.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
o A translation of part of an important work by
Tsong-kha-pa, representing a Tibetan Mādhyamika engagement with
Yogācāra. The author's lengthy introduction advances a broadly
Wittgensteinian understanding of Madhyamaka.
* Tillemans, Tom J. F. 1990. Materials for the Study of Āryadeva,
Dharmapāla and Candrakīrti. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und
Buddhismuskunde, Heft 24, 1-2. Wien: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und
buddhistische Studien.
o Annotated translations (with a philosophically
sophisticated introduction and annotations) of parts of the divergent
commentaries on Āryadeva by the Mādhyamika Candrakīrti and the
Yogācārin Dharmapāla.
* Tuck, Andrew. 1990. Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of
Scholarship: On the Western Interpretation of Nāgārjuna. New York:
Oxford University Press.
o An illuminating study of the philosophical presuppositions
informing important modern interpretations of Nāgārjuna.
* Walser, Joseph. 2005. Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism
and Early Indian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
o An attempt to locate the figure of Nāgārjuna in
socio-historical context (and particularly in relation to the then
nascent Mahāyāna movement).
* Williams, Paul. 1989. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal
Foundations. London: Routledge.
o An accessible and lucid survey of Mahāyāna Buddhist
thought. Chapter 3 treats Madhyamaka, with some attention to Tibetan
and East Asian developments therein.
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