School of thought
Madhyamaka
School
Classification
- Period
- c. 150 CE onward
- Regions
- South Asia (origin), East Asia
- Domains
- Epistemology, Metaphysics
Overview
Madhyamaka, founded by Nagarjuna, is the philosophy of the 'Middle Way' between the extremes of existence and non-existence. Through rigorous dialectical analysis, Nagarjuna demonstrates that all phenomena are empty (sunya) of inherent existence — they exist only dependently and conventionally. This emptiness is itself empty, avoiding even the reification of emptiness.
Key ideas
- Emptiness of Emptiness: Nagarjuna insists that emptiness itself is not a thing or a substance — it is simply the absence of inherent existence. Even emptiness is empty.
- Two Truths: Conventional truth (samvriti-satya) operates at the everyday level; ultimate truth (paramartha-satya) reveals the emptiness of all things. Both are necessary; neither is discarded.
- Tetralemma: Nagarjuna systematically negates four possible positions on any claim: it is, it is not, it both is and is not, it neither is nor is not — dissolving all conceptual fixation.
Key figures
Nagarjuna · Aryadeva · Chandrakirti · Buddhapalita · Bhaviveka
Methods used
Influenced by
Later connections
- Tibetan Buddhism Influenced by this tradition
Tibetan translators preserved a large body of Indian Madhyamaka treatises, which shaped Tibetan scholastic thought, and Tibetan scholars later named Chandrakirti's line of interpretation the Prāsaṅgika school.
- Zen (Chan) Influenced by this tradition
Chan received Madhyamaka through its Chinese transmission: Sengzhao, Kumārajīva's pupil and the chief transmitter of Madhyamaka teaching in China, wrote on emptiness in a paradoxical style that made him a favorite of the later Chan school, which counted him among its unofficial patriarchs.
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Nāgārjuna
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Madhyamaka, introduction (early Madhyamaka treatises translated into Chinese became the basis of a short-lived school of Chinese Buddhism, and a significant number of Madhyamaka texts translated into Tibetan exerted considerable influence on the intellectual heritage of Tibetan Buddhism) and §5.2 'Contributions' (Tibetan scholastics named the Prāsaṅgika subschool): Tibet above all is the later centre recorded under the east-asia region
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Madhyamaka, introduction and §1 — Formation: an Indian Mahayana school beginning with Nagarjuna.
- Paul Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (2nd ed., Routledge, 2009)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Madhyamaka, §3 ('Buddhapālita'), on the method of drawing unwelcome consequences out of an opponent's thesis, and §5.2 ('Contributions'), on Chandrakirti's defence of that Prāsaṅgika approach against Bhāvaviveka
- Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamental Verses) — Nagarjuna (trans. Jay Garfield)
- The Sun of Wisdom — Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso