A Study of Philosophical significance of the Doctrine of Emptiness of Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

A Study of Philosophical significance of the Doctrine of Emptiness of Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

Pulenthiran Nesan

M.Phil Scholar, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2023.70513

Received: 30 March 2023; Revised: 22 April 2023; Accepted: 27 April 2023; Published: 27 May 2023

ABSTRACT

The goal of this study is to expound and present Doctrine of Emptiness in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nagarjuna in as clear and concise a manner as possible. This treatise is the premier work both of Nagarjuna and of the Madhyamaka School of Buddhism as a whole. It includes all of the main themes of the school, serves as a model for the school’s method of argumentation, and it is the focus of the subsequent history of the school. The research problem is that Nagarjuna’s Emptiness is clearly not mean in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. The concept had fundamental implications for Indian philosophical models of causation, substance ontology, epistemology, conceptualizations of language, ethics and theories of world-liberating salvation, and proved seminal even for Buddhist philosophies in India, Tibet, China and Japan very different from Nagarjuna’s own. This study is based on the information culled out from the relevant works of Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka school of Buddhism which are cited in the footnote as well as in the bibliography. Mainly three methods are employed in preparing this study viz., analytical, comparative and critical method. The analytical method is employed in that an attempt to analyzing the concept of emptiness made in this study and these concepts are presented in a systematic manner. The method is also comparative in that incidental comparison of the sunyata concept of Madhyamika School with the other schools is made in order to have a systematic view of the problem. The method is also critical in that the study tries to show merit as well as demerits, if any, in the Buddhistic concepts cited above. Nagarjuna’s main philosophical concept is emptiness. This survey discussed about the Middle Way, and the refutation of the erroneous views as the illumination of right view and the philosophical positions of Nagarjuna.

Key words: Nagarjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, emptiness, Buddhist Philosophy.

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

The Madhyamaka school of Buddhism, the followers of which are called Madhyamakas, was one of the two principal schools of Mahayana Buddhism in India, the other school being the Yogacara. The name of the school is a reference to the claim made of Buddhism in general that it is a middle path (madhyama pratipad) that avoids the two extremes of externalism – the doctrine that all things exist because of an eternal essence and annihilationism – the doctrine that things have essences while they exist but that these essences are annihilated just when the things themselves go out of existence. The conviction of the Madhyamaka school, which can be called the Centrist school in English, is that this middle path is best achieved by a denial that things have any inherent natures at all. All things are, in other words, empty of inherent natures. This doctrine of universal emptiness of inherent natures (svabhava-sunyata) is the hallmark of the school, which places the school solidly in the tradition associated with the literature namely Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) of Mahayana Buddhism.

Mahayana offered a broader definition of soullessness and declared that, not only are persons devoid of a self, but that all of the elements comprising existence are also without essence. They are empty, sunya, of self-nature. Furthermore, the utter smallness of the particles and the sheer distances between them shows matter to be little more than empty space and existence ultimately nothing more than interactions of abstract energy fields. That the truest cosmological quality of things is emptiness, sunya, came to be regarded as the central notion of Buddhism.

The base formulation of emptiness comes from Nagarjuna, and it is the concept for which he is most famous, so much so that the Madhyamaka School was often referred to as the Sunyata-vada, the “School of Emptiness.” Notwithstanding, the concept was not original with him. The term “sunyata” appears at a few places in the Pali Canon, but only a few. Nagarjuna’s main philosophical concept is emptiness. This survey is also going to discuss the Middle Way, Philosophical significance of the Doctrine of Emptiness of Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

Purpose and the Limits of the study

The purpose of this study is to expound and present Doctrine of Emptiness in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nagarjuna in as clear and concise a manner as possible. This treatise is the premier work both of Nagarjuna and of the Madhyamaka School of Buddhism as a whole. It includes all of the main themes of the school, serves as a model for the school’s method of argumentation, and it is the focus of the subsequent history of the school. This is not to ignore the epistemological phase of the school, since the theory of reality is only meaningful in the context of epistemology.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Mulamadhyamakakarika is the unique prominent principle of Nagarjuna’s texts. It is the subject of major commentaries by the Indian scholars Buddhapalita, Bhavaviveka, Avalokitavrata, and Candrakirti, and many more commentaries in Tibet.

The Book titled “Indian Idealism” – 1933, The philosophy of sunyata is interpreted by some as a kind of nihilism. Sayan Madhavacarya calls it sarvavainasikavada, S.N. Dasgupta, a noted scholar and interpreter of Indian Philosophy brands it “blank phenomenalism”.

The Book titled “The Madhyamika Mind – 1977” by Harsh Narain has interpreted the Madhyamaka Philosophy as a philosophy of ‘chaos or irrationalism’.

The karika consists of 27 chapters which embrace of 450 critical verses in total. These stanzas have been preserved in the form of twenty-seven short chapters, each stanza dealing with one topic. The chapter arrangement in which the text is preserved is possibly a later formalization, most likely by Candrakirti.

The early chapters of the Mulamadhyamakakarika (Chapter 1-12), deal mostly with basic metaphysical categories like causation, time, and agency. In general, they are relating to questions regarding the basic categories of Indian philosophy, trying to establish what are the conditions necessary for these concepts to be coherent and non-contradictory.

In the later chapters (Chapter 13-27), Nagarjuna begins to move slowly away from simply negating others’ concepts and beings to put forward some assertions of his own. In these chapters, Nagarjuna puts forth his boldest reasoning, including such assertions as the emptiness of all things, the identity of pratityasamutpada with sunyata, the indifferentiability of nirvana from samsara and the tentative or merely conventional nature of all truth.

The above researches convey about sunyata in a general way. But this research deeply goes into the concept of Philosophical significance of the Doctrine of Emptiness of Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Also this study has tried to show that sunyata is not void in the popular sense of the word “zero’, that is, ‘absolute nothing’, but it is used in a philosophically specific technical sense by Nagarjuna and his followers as ‘essencelessness’ — having no self essence (nihsvabhdvata). This has its basis in the Doctrine of Dependent Origination (pratityasamutpada) in a different sense.

Research Problem

Nagarjuna’s central concept of the “emptiness (sunyata) of all things (dharmas),” which pointed to the incessantly changing and so never fixed nature of all phenomena, served as much as the terminological prop of subsequent Buddhist philosophical thinking as the vexation of opposed Vedic systems. The research problem is that Nagarjuna’s Emptiness is clearly not mean in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The concept had fundamental implications for Indian philosophical models of causation, substance ontology, epistemology, conceptualizations of language, ethics and theories of world-liberating salvation, and proved seminal even for Buddhist philosophies in India, Tibet, China and Japan very different from Nagarjuna’s own. Indeed it would not be an overstatement to say that Nagarjuna’s innovative concept of emptiness, though it was hermeneutically appropriated in many different ways by subsequent philosophers in both South and East Asia, was to profoundly influence the character of Buddhist thought.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study is based on the information culled out from the relevant works of Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka school of Buddhism which are cited in the footnote as well as in the bibliography. Mainly three methods are employed in preparing this study viz., analytical, comparative and critical method. The analytical method is employed in that an attempt to analyzing the concept of emptiness made in this study and these concepts are presented in a systematic manner. The method is also comparative in that incidental comparison of the sunyata concept of Madhyamika School with the other schools is made in order to have a systematic view of the problem. The method is also critical in that the study tries to show merit as well as demerits, if any, in the Buddhistic concepts cited above.

Analysis

The term ‘Buddhism’ is generally used to signify the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha’s teachings have been explained by many as a religion, a philosophy, a psychological system, literature, culture and so on. So much so that it looks like a mountain when viewed from different directions. No doubt, all these aspects could be discerned in different parts of the Buddha’s teachings, but, in fact, the Buddha’s doctrine have something more than all these put together. The reality is what it is. As W. Rahula observes, “Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label ‘Buddhism’ which we give to the teaching of the Buddha is of little importance” (Rahula,W. 1998 : 05). From this text on above we only concluded that the real Buddhists should pay more attention to “Buddhism as a religion”. Buddhism is essentially concerned with all the human problems and their solutions. It is a religion of right life, both theoretically and practically. The Buddha purposely avoided discussions on the immortality of soul, eternality of the universe, because, as far as he was concerned, they did not have any practical value, as state in this text, that;

“…as inessential and beside the point as it would be unimportant for a wounded person to inquire about the caste, creed and complexion of the man who wounded him, before allowing the surgeon to remove the arrow from his body” (Sharma, I.C. 1970 : 150).

Siddhartha Gautama, the prince of the Sakya clan, originated a religion that is in such the ways the most unusual of those living in the world today. He claimed access to no divine perception, no exclusive intuition, no worldly or spiritual authority, and no super-human status of any kind. The philosophy he taught challenges common-sense concepts about what the nature of the world is and displaces the very beliefs that people incline to relish the most: the existence of God, the reality of the self, the promise of an afterlife, and the availability of happiness. In their place he taught dependence on personal understanding and the practical hopelessness of mere belief. He taught that all occurrences are impermanent and nothing can be counted on to endure; that there is no soul to be found at any time, in anything, anywhere; and that the essential quality of life, even when it seems pleasurable, is intensely disappointing. And yet, the religion that has grown out of Siddhartha’s insights has become a major world religion known for its serenity, its empathy, and its Bliss

Everything in Buddhism including teaching and discipline revolves around the law of impermanence (anicca). There is nothing but perpetual flux. Edward J. Thomas refers to Kern in the memorable words,

“It is by no means incredible that the Disciples after the death of the founder of their sect came together to come to an agreement concerning the principal points of the creed and of the discipline” (Edward J. Thomas, 2013 : 29).

The schools of Buddhism

After the Buddha’s death, or after “the lamp of wisdom had been blown out by the wind of impermanence”, his original teachings spread to various places. The transformations differed according to the varying backgrounds, knowledge, education, training, and intelligence of the

people who passed the teachings on. Because of different background of personal interests, biases and skillfulness of the people who maintained the teachings, some parts of the teachings became prominent while others tended to fade into the background. Therefore, Buddhism consists of various sects.

Most scholars classify Buddhist schools into two main sects such as Theravada and Mahayana. P. V. Bapat says, “In the history of the succession of schools, it is found that the first schism in the Sanghawas followed by a series of schisms leading to the formation of different sub-sects, and in the course of time eleven such sub-sects arose out of the Theravada while seven issued from the Mahasanghikas. Later, there appeared other sub-sects also. All these branches appeared one after another in close succession within three or four hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvana.” (Bapat, P.V. (ed.), 1956: 89).

From the religious standpoint Buddhism is divided into two main schools, namely, the Theravada and the Mahayana. Theravada is a Pali word which is made up of two words: thera and vada, thera means ‘elders’, and vada for ‘word or doctrine’, so Theravada is defined as ‘Doctrine of the Elders’, it is the name for the school of Buddhism that draws its scriptural inspiration from the Pali Canon or Tipitaka which scholars generally accept as the oldest record of the Buddha’s teachings.

For many centuries Theravada has been the predominant religion of Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. Another sect is called Acariyavada, the Doctrine of teachers (Acariyas) or Mahasangkikas as has already been noted.

Mahayana literally means ‘great vehicle’ (of liberation from samsara). Hinayana is a derogatory term meaning ‘small vehicle’ or ‘inferior vehicle’, it is used by people who claim to follow the Mahayana, to refer to the followers of the Theravada school. So Theravada is often equated with ‘Hinayana’, in contrast to ‘Mahayana’.Mahayana is a synonym for Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, and other expressions of Northern Buddhism. The use of ‘Hinayana’ as a pejorative has its origins in the early schisms within the monastic community that ultimately led to the emergence of what would later become Mahayana.

Thoughts of the Buddha

A central point of the Buddha’s thought is that all is in flux; nothing which exists can remain unchanged. A natural implication of this is that the Law, the Buddha’s teaching itself, would also suffer corruption and change. The original scriptures announced various prophesies regarding this change. Some predicted that the Law would remain pure for only 500 years, others that it would endure for a thousand. Following this period of pure understanding, mere scholarship would replace spiritual achievement (Edward Conze, 1990 : 114).

Broadly speaking, Indian philosophy witnessed two opposing traditions regarding the ultimate nature of reality. One tradition, which is represented by practically the whole of Hinduism, asserts the existence of an imminent and transcendent “soul”, the atman. The atman is the soul both of the human individual and of universal God. It is the ultimate ground of being and is immutable and eternal. Buddhism, on the other hand, denies this substratum. It presents a doctrine of an atman, “soullessness.” The Buddha taught that there is no abiding self, but rather just five ever-changing aggregates (skandhas) of elements: physical substance, sense-contacts, perceptions, psychological tendencies, and consciousness. The individual person is an aggregate of these five categories, and each category is in itself an aggregate of composite elements (dharmas and dhatus). For example, the category of physical substance is an aggregate of earth, air, water, and fire, and the category of psychological tendencies is an aggregate of habits, likes, dislikes, greed, willfulness, etc. The idea of a “person” is just a convenient way to refer to these five categories and aggregates of elements. It is a mistake to believe that there is an underlying and unchanging self in this dynamic agglomeration of fluctuating elements. However, a small group of monks insisted that, nonetheless, the individual self must be in some way real. If there is no self which is more real than and transcending the aggregates of elements, they argued, still at the very least it should not be wrong to say that the self is no less real than the aggregates. They claimed that there is a subtle self which is neither identical with nor different from the agglomeration of elements (Harvey, P. 2012 : 85).

Although Moggaliputtatissa and all other Buddhist schools rejected this “Personalist” argument, the notion proved to be tenacious and longlived. As late as the seventh century C.E. a full one-quarter of Indian monks claimed adherence to the Personalist school, and Nagarjuna as well as numerous later writers, both Madhyamika and otherwise, felt compelled to address this misbelief (Kalupahana, D, J. 1986: 29-30). The “heresy” of Personalism presumably arose because some Buddhists were unwilling to abandon completely the belief in the soul, and so claimed that the aggregate of elements did not fully preclude the possibility of a self. The controversy

of “Realism” also arose from the doctrine of the aggregates, but for an exactly opposite reason. The Realists asserted that, if there is no metaphysical soul behind the aggregates, then the aggregates themselves must be real. If the soul is not an ultimate entity, then the individual atomistic elements (dharmas) of which the world is composed must be ultimately real. These elements are reified, they taught, and each has its unique and individual atomic “self-nature,” svabhava. Only thus could the Buddha’s teaching that all aggregates are in perpetual flux be reconciled with the fact that objects are observed to have individual and  continuous identities (Kalupahana, D, J. 1986: 22)

Furthermore, these atomistic elements are themselves eternal and unchanging; while their form and the objects of which they are a part may change, their self-nature, svabhava, remains real and constant. Hence the label “Realism” were quite vocal against the concept of Personalism and insisted that the Buddha’s doctrine of an atman allowed no room for any type of belief in self-hood. However, their assertion that the atoms comprising the world have individual selfnatures was seen by other Buddhists as being an unjustified realism or as just another form of Personalism. Criticism of their concept of self-nature became one of the key issues of the Madhyamikas.

The third false doctrine which Moggaliputtatissa reports being discussed was Transcendentalism. The Buddha had left the community of his followers with no single source of authority following his death, telling them instead to “be lamps unto [them] selves.” “The truths and rules of the order which I have set forth and laid down for you all, let them, after I am gone, be the Teacher to you.” (Davids, R. 1969: 33). Despite these words which the Buddha delivered from his deathbed, many disciples came to believe that the Buddha had totally transcended the world, not just ceased to exist.

Mahayana Buddhists came to believe that, although the physical Buddha was dead, his intelligence and his teachings remained in a form called the “Dharma Body” (Williams, P. 2008: 176).  Although it was claimed that this transcendent form did not really exist (for that would contradict the Buddha’s doctrines), still the Dharma Body is an expression of the ultimate reality, the true nature of things (Williams, P. 2008: 175). The Dharma Body came to be known by diverse terms, such as “Buddha-nature,” “Thusness,” or “Suchness of Existents,” and its nature has been interpreted in many ways. Moggaliputtatissa refuted this belief in a transcendent nature of the Buddha by demonstrating that it is incompatible with the Buddha’s historicity (Kalupahana, D, J. 1992: 141).  Nagarjuna dealt little with the theories of Transcendentalism, but it became an important topic for later Madhyamikas (Williams, P. 2008: 179).

The life and works of of Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna occupies a unique position in the evolution of Buddhist thought and practices. Indeed, everything about Nagarjuna remains a mystery – his identity, date, place of birth as well as activities remaining subject to keen controversies. He has held a continuous attention of Buddhists and non Buddhists since his own day and deserved attention also of the modern scholars during the first half of nineteenth century when the manuscript of his ‘magnum opus’ – Mulamadhyamaka – Karika with one of its commentaries ‘Prasannapadl’ by Candrakirti has been found among the 381 bundles of Sanskrit manuscripts on Buddhism, discovered from Kathmandu in Nepal by Mr. Brian Houghton Hodson, appointed resident there in 1833-42 (Stcherbatsky, 1977: 3-4). In the Eastern World he exerted a historical influence of such vastness and depth that it can only be said to have been surpassed by that of the Buddha.

Nagarjuna’s influence could be compared with that of Jesus Christ and St. Paul in the West or that of the prophet Mohammad in West Asia. Devout Buddhists of China, Japan and Tibet, in fact, actually considerhim to be the second Buddha who had once again set in motion the wheel of Dharma (Truth and righteousness). Lanka Vatara – Sutra spoke of him as “the glorious and greatly renowned monk who expounded in this world Buddha’s teaching as that of the Great Path, higherthan which there is none.” He became its “putative father”, Bodhisattva who for the salvation of all, it is said, brought it out from within the Buddhist Order (Sarhgha) to the external world.

Thus, Nagarjuna’s historical figure was mystified and to his substantial achievements the Indian, the Tibetan and the Chinese traditions added magical and Tantrik accomplishment and produced biographies of this image far a reality to the faithful.The one composite Nagarjuna or the Nagarjuna image was the (1) Philosopher or Logician, (2) Bodhisattva. (3) Tantrik, (4) Siddha. (5) Magician. & Alchemist. Though the traditions of his life are greatly overlaid with legendary details, there is no reason to doubt that Nagarjuna was a historical personality. Because his writings, the extraordinary impact he made on the development of Buddhism and religious thought in the East and the images of him formed by generation of Asians and recorded by some of the best minds, constitute his historical reality. Historicity of a person is to be determined in accordance with the age and circumstances responsible for his emergence. So the period of Nagarjuna is to be looked for. In this connection, it may be mentioned that all accounts of Nagarjuna, incidents relating to the great philosopher as well as other’s which might have occurred at various times between the seventh and the tenth centuries, are all attributed to one and the same person.

Doctrine of Emptiness of Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The Buddha perceived that all things are transitory and that nothing endures. This was the logical basis for his declaration that nothing has an essence and that all is an atman. The Theravada tradition interpreted this to mean that no persons have a self beyond that constructed by the five fluctuating aggregates, but that the individual elements constituting existence did have an essence; this is which made the elements individual and irreducible. (Robinson, R, H. 1967: 61-65) Mahayana offered a broader definition of soullessness and declared that, not only are persons devoid of a self, but that all of the elements comprising existence are also without essence.

Emptiness is not a theory or a view; rather it is an empty of all views. The concept of emptiness is never about a thing or a nothing; rather it is an empty of a thing or a nothing (Edward, C. 1990: 08). That all things are empty implies that concepts or categories through which we constitute our experiences are unintelligible. However, people are inclined to employ conceptual schemes to describe the nature of things. They feel as if concepts can be related to reality and provide a clear picture of the world, through them only one can be sure about what has happened out there. But for the Madhyamikas, language never represents the phenomena as they really are. Words do not refer to what they are believed to be referring. Language is non–referential. Concepts do not have an intrinsic relation with the objects they are supposed to be representing. All linguistic concepts are conventional and relative, and hence do not have absolute validity of meaning.

Emptiness is of the highest value and most profound truth, precisely, because the adept can apply it as a tranquilizing pill for conceptual diffusion. By itself the term has no definite import but acquires various meaning on different circumstances. It is usually used to mean the devoidness of something. According to the Madhyamikas, all things are empty for they are devoid of definite nature, characteristic and function. As Nagarjuna says:

“All things are empty why? Neither created nor non – created things Have characteristics. Since they have no characteristics They are empty.” (Nancy Mc Gagney. Lanham, MD (Tr), 1997: XVIII. 7).

They are empty, sunya, of self-nature. Furthermore, the utter smallness of the particles and the sheer distances between them shows matter to be little more than empty space and existence ultimately nothing more than interactions of abstract energy fields. That the truest cosmological quality of things is emptiness, sunya, came to be regarded as the central notion of Buddhism (Stcherbatsky, T. 1965:  67).

The base formulation of emptiness comes from Nagarjuna, and it is the concept for which he is most famous, so much so that the Madhyamaka School was often referred to as the Sunyata-vada, the “School of Emptiness.” Notwithstanding, the concept was not original with him. The term “sunyata” appears at a few places in the Pali Canon, but only a few. Here it tends to have the simple meaning of a lack of something. In the “Lesser Discourse on Emptiness,” the Buddha says that, in a hall where there are monks gathered but in which there are no elements or cows, one can say that the hall is “empty” of elephants and cows. Likewise, when a monk is meditating in a solitary forest, the forest is “empty” of villages and villager. “When something does not exist there, the latter [the place] is empty with regard to the former,” the Buddha defines. This meaning of a lack is also extended to mean a lack of disturbances for the meditating mind. Emptiness is both an object for contemplation and a method of quietism; one can “practice emptiness” both by meditating on the emptiness of the self and by freeing oneself from disturbances.

CONCLUSION

An attempt has been made in the foregoing pages to study Nagaijuna’s contribution in all aspects – personal history, literary composition as well as philosophical and religious contribution. Nagarjuna is not denying the existence of the external world and interpreting the Buddha’s dharma as some kind of philosophical idealism, but he is denying that a hypostatized description is true of it. That is, those events that comprise the world of experience do not exist in some permanent state (asti) and if they did so exist, they could never be said to not exist (nasti).

To review, existence does not exist, but becoming does occur. Yet any description of becoming rests on a coherent description of causality and arising. These concepts, as shown above, are reduced to absurdity (contradiction) under analysis and so are incoherent. Thus events in the experienced world cannot even be said to arise or cease, be permanent or impermanent, identical or different, to come or go. They are emptiness and indeterminate. But this is not to say that events are indescribable or nonexistent. Events are not non-existent because nasti is logically impossible, as the son of a barren woman. According to Nagarjuna, events also occur in the only way beings in the world and the Tathagata could occur, without self-nature as empty and interdependent.

REFERENCES

1. Bapat. P. V. (ed) (1964), 2500 years of Buddhism’, Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Govt of India.
2. Chatterjee, S., and Datta, D, M., (1960), An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, Calcutta, University of Calcutta.
3. Davids, R., (1969), Buddhist Sutra: Maha Parinibbhana Sutra, New York, Dover Publication Inc.
4. Dissanayake, W., (2007), Nagarjuna and Modern Communication Theory, China Media Research.
5. Edward, C., (1990), The Large Sutras on Perfect Wisdom, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
6. Edward, J, Thomas., (2013), The History of Buddhist Thought, London, Routledge publication.
7. Gadjin, M, Nagao., (1989), The Foundational Standpoint of Madhyamika Philosophy, New York, State University of New York Press.
8. Gowans, C, W., (2014), Buddhist Moral Philosophy: An Introduction, Abingdon, Routledge.
9. Harvey, P., (2012), An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Introduction to Religion), London, Cambridge University Press.
10. Hiriyanna, M., (1967), Outlines of Indian Philosophy, London, George Allen Unwin Ltd.
11. Jayatilleke, K, N., (1980), Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass.
12. Kalupahana, David, J., (1986), The Mulamadhyamakakarika of Nagarjuna, The Philosophy of the Middle Way, New York, State University of New York Press.
13. Kalupahana, David, J., (1992), A History of Buddhist Philosophy, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.
14. Liu, J., Berger, D., (2014), Nothingness in Asian Philosophy, Abingdon, Routledge.
15. Mark, S., Shoryu, K., (2013), Nagarjuna’s Middle Way: Mulamadhyamakakarika (Classics of Indian Buddhism), Somerville. Wisdom Publications.
16. Murti, T, R, V., (1960), The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, London, George Allen Unwin Ltd.
17. Murty, K, S., (1978), Nagarjuna, New Delhi, National Book Trust.
18. Narain, H., (1997), The Madhyamika Mind, University of Virginia, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
19. Rahula, W., (1998), What the Buddha Thought, Oxford, One world Publications.
20. Raman, K,V., (1987), Nagarjuna’s Philosophy, As Presented in the Maha Prajnaparamita-Sastra, New Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass.
21. Richard H, Robinson., (1967), Early Madhyamika in India and China, London, The University of Wisconsin Press.
22. Sebastian, C, D., (2016), The Cloud of Nothingness: The Negative Way in Nagarjuna and John of the Cross, Berlin, Springer.
23. Sharma, I, C., (1970), Ethical Philosophies of India, California, Harper & Row.
24. Stcherbatsky, T., (1977), The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana, New Delhi, Motilal Banarasidass.
25. Westerhoff, J., (2009), Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
26. Williams, P., (2008), Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, London, Routledge.