Editing Nagarjuna (section)

==Philosophy==
[[File:Nagarjuna at Samye Ling Monastery.JPG|thumb|right|Golden statue of Nāgārjuna at [[Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre|Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery]], Scotland]]

===Sunyata===
{{main|Śūnyatā}}

Nāgārjuna's major thematic focus is the concept of [[śūnyatā]] (translated into English as "emptiness") which brings together other key Buddhist doctrines, particularly [[anatta|anātman]] "not-self" and [[pratītyasamutpāda]] "dependent origination", to refute the metaphysics of some of his contemporaries. For Nāgārjuna, as for the Buddha in the early texts, it is not merely [[Sentient beings (Buddhism)|sentient beings]] that are "selfless" or non-substantial; all phenomena (dhammas) are without any [[svabhava|svabhāva]], literally "own-being", "self-nature", or "inherent existence" and thus without any underlying essence. They are ''empty'' of being independently existent; thus the heterodox theories of svabhāva circulating at the time were refuted on the basis of the doctrines of early Buddhism. This is so because all things arise always dependently: not by their own power, but by depending on conditions leading to their becoming —coming into [[existence]]—, as opposed to [[being]].

Nāgārjuna means by real any entity which has a nature of its own (svabhāva), which is not produced by causes (akrtaka), which is not dependent on anything else (paratra nirapeksha).<ref>S.Radhakrishnan, ''Indian philosophy'' Volume 1, p. 607</ref>

Chapter 24 verse 14 of the ''[[Mūlamadhyamakakārikā]]'' provides one of Nāgārjuna's most famous quotations on emptiness and co-arising:<ref name="siderits">{{cite book | last1 = Siderits | first1 = Mark | last2 = Katsura | first2 = Shoryu | title = Nagarjuna's Middle Way: Mulamadhyamakakarika (Classics of Indian Buddhism) | publisher = Wisdom Publications | year = 2013 | isbn = 978-1-61429-050-6 | pages=175–76}}</ref>

{{blockquote|''sarvaṃ ca yujyate tasya śūnyatā yasya yujyate<br />sarvaṃ na yujyate tasya śūnyaṃ yasya na yujyate''<br />

All is possible when emptiness is possible.<br />Nothing is possible when emptiness is impossible.}}

As part of his analysis of the emptiness of phenomena in the ''[[Mūlamadhyamakakārikā]]'', Nāgārjuna critiques svabhāva in several different concepts. He discusses the problems of positing any sort of inherent essence to causation, movement, change and personal identity. Nāgārjuna makes use of the Indian logical tool of the [[tetralemma]] to attack any essentialist conceptions. Nāgārjuna's logical analysis is based on four basic propositions:

:All things (dharma) exist: affirmation of being, negation of non-being
:All things (dharma) do not exist: affirmation of non-being, negation of being
:All things (dharma) both exist and do not exist: both affirmation and negation
:All things (dharma) neither exist nor do not exist: neither affirmation nor negation <ref>Dumoulin, Heinrich (1998) Zen Buddhism: a history, India and China, Macmillan Publishing, 43</ref>

To say that all things are 'empty' is to deny any kind of ontological foundation; therefore Nāgārjuna's view is often seen as a kind of ontological [[anti-foundationalism]]<ref>Westerhoff, Jan. Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction.</ref> or a metaphysical [[anti-realism]].<ref>Siderits, Mark. Nagarjuna as anti-realist, Journal of Indian Philosophy December 1988, Volume 16, Issue 4, pp 311-325.</ref> Understanding the nature of the emptiness of phenomena is simply a means to an end, which is [[nirvana]]. Thus Nāgārjuna's philosophical project is ultimately a soteriological one meant to correct our everyday cognitive processes which mistakenly posits [[svabhava|svabhāva]] on the flow of experience.

Some scholars such as [[Fyodor Shcherbatskoy]] and T.R.V. Murti held that Nāgārjuna was the inventor of the Shunyata doctrine; however, more recent work by scholars such as Choong Mun-keat, Yin Shun and Dhammajothi Thero has argued that Nāgārjuna was not an innovator by putting forth this theory,<ref>Yìn Shùn, An Investigation into Emptiness (Kōng zhī Tànjìu 空之探究) (1985)</ref><ref>Choong, The Notion of Emptiness in Early Buddhism (1999)</ref><ref>Medawachchiye Dhammajothi Thero, The Concept of Emptiness in Pali Literature</ref> but that, in the words of Shi Huifeng, "the connection between emptiness and dependent origination is not an innovation or creation of Nāgārjuna".<ref>Shi huifeng: “Dependent Origination = Emptiness”—Nāgārjuna’s Innovation?</ref>

===Two truths===
{{main|Two truths doctrine}}

Nāgārjuna was also instrumental in the development of the [[two truths doctrine]], which claims that there are two levels of truth in Buddhist teaching, the ultimate truth (''paramārtha satya'') and the conventional or superficial truth (''saṃvṛtisatya''). The ultimate truth to Nāgārjuna is the truth that everything is empty of essence,<ref>Garfield, Jay. Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-cultural Interpretation, p. 91.</ref> this includes emptiness itself ('the emptiness of emptiness'). While some (Murti, 1955) have interpreted this by positing Nāgārjuna as a [[neo-Kantianism|neo-Kantian]] and thus making ultimate truth a metaphysical [[noumenon]] or an "ineffable ultimate that transcends the capacities of discursive reason",<ref name="Siderits, Mark 2003">Siderits, Mark, ''On the Soteriological Significance of Emptiness, Contemporary Buddhism'', Vol. 4, No. 1, 2003.</ref> others such as Mark Siderits and [[Jay L. Garfield]] have argued that Nāgārjuna's view is that "the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth" (Siderits) and that Nāgārjuna is a "semantic anti-dualist" who posits that there are only conventional truths.<ref name="Siderits, Mark 2003" /> Hence according to Garfield:

<blockquote>Suppose that we take a conventional entity, such as a table. We analyze it to demonstrate its emptiness, finding that there is no table apart from its parts [...]. So we conclude that it is empty. But now let us analyze that emptiness [...]. What do we find? Nothing at all but the table's lack of inherent existence. [...]. To see the table as empty [...] is to see the table as conventional, as dependent.<ref>Garfield, J. L. (2002). ''Empty words'', pp. 38–39</ref></blockquote>

In articulating this notion in the ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'', Nāgārjuna drew on an early source in the ''[[Kaccānagotta Sutta]]'',{{sfn|Kalupahana|1986}} which distinguishes definitive meaning (''nītārtha'') from interpretable meaning (''neyārtha''):
{{blockquote|By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one reads the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "non-existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one reads the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one.

By and large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), and biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on "my self". He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It's to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view.

"Everything exists": That is one extreme. "Everything doesn't exist": That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle...<ref>Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1997). [https://web.archive.org/web/20130329025311/http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.015.than.html SN 12.15 Kaccayanagotta Sutta: To Kaccayana Gotta (on Right View)]</ref>}}
The version linked to is the one found in the nikayas, and is slightly different from the one found in the ''Samyuktagama''. Both contain the concept of teaching via the middle between the extremes of existence and non-existence.<ref>A.K. Warder, ''A Course in Indian Philosophy.'' Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1998, pp. 55–56</ref><ref>For the full text of both versions with analysis see pp. 192–95 of Choong Mun-keat, ''The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism: A comparative study based on the Sutranga portion of the Pali Samyutta-Nikaya and the Chinese Samyuktagama''; Harrassowitz Verlag, Weisbaden, 2000.</ref> Nagarjuna does not make reference to "everything" when he quotes the agamic text in his ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā''.{{sfn|Kalupahana|1986|p=232}}

=== Causality ===
{{See also|Causality}}

Jay L. Garfield describes that Nāgārjuna approached causality from the [[Four Noble Truths]] and [[dependent origination]]. Nāgārjuna distinguished two dependent origination views in a causal process, that which causes effects and that which causes conditions. This is predicated in the [[#Two truths|two truth doctrine]], as conventional truth and ultimate truth held together, in which both are empty in existence.  The distinction between effects and conditions is controversial. In Nāgārjuna's approach, cause means an event or state that has power to bring an effect. Conditions, refer to proliferating causes that bring a further event, state or process; without a metaphysical commitment to an occult connection between explaining and explanans. He argues nonexistent causes and various existing conditions. The argument draws from unreal causal power.  Things conventional exist and are ultimately nonexistent to rest in the [[Middle Way]] in both causal existence and nonexistence as casual emptiness within the [[Mūlamadhyamakakārikā]] doctrine. Although seeming strange to Westerners, this is seen as an attack on a reified view of causality.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Garfield|first1=Jay L|title=Dependent Arising and the Emptiness of Emptiness: Why Did Nāgārjuna Start with Causation?|journal=Philosophy East and West|date=April 1994|volume=44|issue=2|pages=219–50|doi=10.2307/1399593|jstor=1399593|s2cid=51932733 |url=https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=phi_facpubs}}</ref>

===Relativity===
{{see also|Relativism}}
Nāgārjuna also taught the idea of relativity; in the Ratnāvalī, he gives the example that shortness exists only in relation to the idea of length. The determination of a thing or object is only possible in relation to other things or objects, especially by way of contrast. He held that the relationship between the ideas of "short" and "long" is not due to intrinsic nature (svabhāva). This idea is also found in the Pali Nikāyas and Chinese Āgamas, in which the idea of relativity is expressed similarly: "That which is the element of light ... is seen to exist on account of [in relation to] darkness; that which is the element of good is seen to exist on account of bad; that which is the element of space is seen to exist on account of form."{{sfn|Kalupahana|1975|loc=96-97: "In the Nikayas the quote is found at SN 2.150."}}