Nāgārjuna's "Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way"

A Brief Introduction

In an earlier post, I presented how Nāgārjuna’s thought has been used by two contemporary philosophers: Michel Bitbol and Graham Priest. I also explained that I wrote this post as the first step in a philosophical reading of Nāgārjuna’s major contribution: his Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (hereafter referred to as Middle Way).

You can find this first post below:

Nāgārjuna Today: Addressing Philosophical Problems with Buddhist Insights

In this second post, I would like to present this text, which has had an unusual journey. The elements I will present here are not new, and I have already presented them in my book on the philosophy of Yamauchi Tokuryū (in French), which draws extensively on Nāgārjuna’s thought and its various classical interpretations.

Nevertheless, they are important elements that should justify approaching Nāgārjuna’s text on the basis of research that discusses its various versions, whether Sanskrit, Chinese, or Tibetan.

The Great Work of Nāgārjuna: A Lost Text

The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, or Mūlamadhyamakakārikā in Sanskrit, conceals a fascinating story. Not only is the life of its author, Nāgārjuna, largely unknown, but the original version of his main contribution has also been lost.

Since all copies have disappeared, no modern translation has been made from an “original” Middle Way manuscript. Instead, based on the text as rendered and commented upon by Candrakīrti in his Prasannapadā, around the seventh century, scholars have reconstructed what is considered to be the Sanskrit version of Nāgārjuna’s text. Ancient Chinese and Tibetan translations also exist and are used by modern scholars to support their understanding of Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way.

The reference translation in East Asia, in classical Chinese, is that of Kumārajīva, a Kutchean monk of the fourth and fifth centuries, who was one of the greatest translators of Buddhism. 

This explanation is not without importance as it helps us to understand that, in addition to ancient and modern secondary literature aimed at explaining to the reader the thought of Nāgārjuna, scholars have at their disposal, when analyzing the Middle Way, mainly two ways of accessing the text of this thinker:

• The modern translation from Sanskrit of the Middle Way as rendered in Candrakīrti’s Prasannapadā or the modern translation of Candrakīrti’s Prasannapadā itself.

• The Chinese and Tibetan translations of the Middle Way. As I explained above, the reference translation for the Chinese is that of Kumārajīva. I will refer to this at length, more so than to its Tibetan equivalent, for the simple reason that I have never learned Tibetan. But of course I will also base my explanations on scholarly works on the Tibetan version.

From time to time I will refer to peripheral writings and secondary literature in the hope that it will shed some light on a difficult reading.

The whole reading will be put behind a paywall, as I am thinking of writing a book based on my discussion of Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way.

Books and Art on Nāgārjuna’s “Middle Way”