Editing Nagarjuna (section)

=== Life ===
Very little is reliably known of the life of Nāgārjuna and modern historians do not agree on a specific date (1st to 3rd century CE) or place (multiple places in India suggested) for him.<ref name=":0">Walser (2005), p. 60.</ref> The earliest surviving accounts were written in Chinese and Tibetan centuries after his death and are mostly [[Hagiography|hagiographical]] accounts that are historically unverifiable.<ref name=":0" />

Some scholars such as Joseph Walser argue that Nāgārjuna was an advisor to a king of the [[Satavahana dynasty|Sātavāhana]] dynasty which ruled the [[Deccan Plateau]] in the second century.<ref name=":1">Walser (2005), p. 61.</ref>{{sfn|Kalupahana|1994|p=160}} This is supported by most of the traditional hagiographical sources as well.<ref name=":3"/> Archaeological evidence at [[Amaravati Stupa|Amarāvatī]] indicates that if this is true, the king may have been [[Yajna Sri Satakarni|Yajña Śrī Śātakarṇi]] (c. second half of the 2nd century). On the basis of this association, Nāgārjuna is conventionally placed at around 150–250 CE.<ref name=":1" />{{sfn|Kalupahana|1994|p=160}}
[[File:Amaravati stupa. Model. Amaravati.JPG|thumb|right|A model of the [[Amaravati Stupa]]]]
Walser thinks that it is most likely that when Nāgārjuna wrote the ''Ratnavali'', he lived in a mixed monastery (with Mahāyānists and non-Mahāyānists) in which Mahāyānists were the minority. The most likely sectarian affiliation of the monastery according to Walser was Purvasailya, Aparasailya, or [[Caitika|Caityaka]] (which were [[Mahāsāṃghika]] sub-schools).<ref>Walser (2005), p. 87.</ref>

He also argues that "it is plausible that he wrote the ''Ratnavali'' within a thirty-year period at the end of the second century in the [[Andhra Pradesh|Andhra]] region around Dhanyakataka (modern-day [[Amaravati]])."<ref name=":1" />