Nāgārjuna

Primary source

• Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, XXIV.18, in Jay L. Garfield's translation (1995)MMK XXIV.18 identifies the dependently co-arisen with emptiness, itself a dependent designation and the middle way.

  Whatever is dependently co-arisen

• Attributed to Kumārajīva (tr.), Longshu pusa zhuan (Life of the Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna), Taishō 2047, T50 no. 2047aThe young Nāgārjuna and three friends obtain an invisibility drug, enter the royal palace and violate its women; the three are cut down and he vows to become a monk.

  唯有隱身之術斯樂可辦

• Kumārajīva (tr.), Zhong lun (Middle Treatise), Taishō 1564, T30 no. 1564, juan 1 headingKumārajīva's Chinese translation of the root verses with Piṅgala's (Qingmu's) commentary, the earliest surviving witness to the Kārikā.

  姚秦三藏鳩摩羅什譯

Scholarship

• Jay L. Garfield, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, 1995 (record)Garfield's 1995 translation and commentary on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, including XXIV.18 on emptiness as the middle way.
• Jan Westerhoff, Nāgārjuna, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010, §1 Life and works (revised 31 May 2026)Dating Nāgārjuna to 150–250 CE, probably in southern India, and noting that several authors bore his name.

  Nāgārjuna was a Buddhist monk who lived some time between

Further reading

• Wikipedia contributors, Nagarjuna, 2026, Life; WorksKumārajīva (344–413); the Longshu pusa zhuan is traditionally attributed to him but likely later; the Zhong lun is the earliest translation of the MMK.

  is likely a later composition