The Root Stanzas of the Middle Way: The Mulamadhyamakakarika - Paperback

by Nagarjuna (Author), Padmakara Translation Group (Translator)

A new English translation of the founding text of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school of Buddhism, with the Tibetan version of the text included.

The Root Stanzas holds an honored place in all branches of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as in the Buddhist traditions found in China, Japan, and Korea, because of the way it develops the seminal view of emptiness (shunyata), which is crucial to understanding Mahayana Buddhism and central to its practice. It is prized for its pithy and pointed arguments that show that things lack intrinsic being and thus are "empty" (shunya). They abide in the Middle Way, free from the extremes of permanence and annihilation.

Author Biography

NAGARJUNA, the South Indian Buddhist master who lived some six hundred years after the Buddha, founded the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school of Mahayana Buddhism. He is arguably the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahayana Buddhist philosopher.