The MūlamadhyamakakārikāAlso known as the Prajñā-nāma-mūlamadhyamakakārikā or as the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā-prajñā-nāma. (), abbreviated as MMK, is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. It was composed by the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna (around roughly 150 CE).Siderits and Katsura (2013), p. 1.
The MMK makes use of reductio arguments to show how all phenomena (dharmas) are empty of svabhava (which has been variously translated as essence, own-being, or inherent existence).Garfield (1995), p. 89. The MMK is widely regarded as one of the most influential and widely studied texts in the history of Buddhist philosophy.Garfield (1995), p. 87. The MMK had a major impact on the subsequent development of Buddhist thought, especially in Tibetan Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism.
Background
The MMK is the work of Nāgārjuna, an Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher writing in Sanskrit. Very little is known about this figure, including exactly where he lived (somewhere in the Indian subcontinent), exactly what time (some time around the 2nd or 3rd century CE), and how many texts he composed.Westerhoff (2019), p. 89. As with many early Indian historical figures, the biographical information which does exist is mainly hagiographical and from later periods. Most scholars agree that Nāgārjuna was a Mahāyāna Buddhist who believed all things (dharmas) to be empty, or without an intrinsic existence and nature (svabhāva). Beyond that, little can be said about him with certainty.
During the second and third centuries, Mahāyāna ideas were held by a minority of Buddhists in India who lived within the communities of Nikāya Buddhism (i.e. non-Mahāyāna Buddhism).Walser (2005), p. 43. Although all the major Buddhist schools at the time held that the person was empty of any eternal self or soul, some of the Abhidharma schools conceived of dharmas (transient phenomena, impermanent events) as ultimately real entities (dravyata) that had essences or "intrinsic natures" (svabhāva). These intrinsic natures were seen as an independent part of a phenomenon, an inherent self-sufficiency that was not caused by something else. Abhidharma schools like the Vaibhasikas accepted this doctrine and did not see it as conflicting with the idea of dependent origination.Westerhoff (2019), pp. 109-111.
In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna sought to refute these essentialist ideas found in Buddhist traditions such as Vaibhasika and Pudgalavada, as well as in Brahmanical schools of thought like Nyaya who also defended an essence based metaphysics. As such, his philosophy is also often termed Niḥsvabhāvavāda (the no svabhāva doctrine).
Nāgārjuna's main contention with svabhāva theories was that they contradicted the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda). Furthermore, essence theories are not in agreement with the Mahāyāna sutras Nāgārjuna would have been familiar with. These sutras, particularly the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, teach a kind of comprehensive illusionist ontology that sees all dharmas, even nirvana and Buddhahood, as being empty and like an illusion.Westerhoff (2019), pp. 101-102. This illusionism was not totally new, since similar ideas about emptiness can be found in the early Buddhist texts (see: Samyutta Nikaya 22:95, as well as Samyukta Āgama 335 and 297).Shì hùifēng (2013), “Dependent Origination = Emptiness”—Nāgārjuna’s Innovation? An Examination of the Early and Mainstream Sectarian Textual Sources, p. 26. JCBSSL VOL. XI However, the Prajñāpāramitā texts are unique in seeing all dharmas, including nirvana, as empty and like illusions. The MMK cites the Kaccānagotta Sutta, an early Buddhist text, from which it draws one of its major ideas regarding the middle way: the explanation of "right-view" as being a middle way between saying that "everything exists" (referring to the view of permanent existence: Pali: atthitā, Skt. astitva) and saying that "everything does not exist" (non-existence; Pali: n'atthitā, Skt nāstitva). This middle way is then defined as the 12 principles (dvādaśāṅga) of dependent origination.Kalupahana (1991). p. 10.
Thus, Nāgārjuna's main project was to develop the philosophical position of the Buddha's teaching of dependent origination and not-self/emptiness as well as the ideas of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras in a logical and systematic manner by refuting svabhāva theories and self theories.Westerhoff (2019), p. 105.
Content The text is a series of 450 verses (karikas) organized into 27 chapters. The verses are aphoristic, often enigmatic, and extremely short. The text's arguments are presented in a highly compressed and concise form. This is because the text is a karika-style work. Such texts were meant to be memorized as an aid to learning by students. The text's arguments would be filled out through the oral commentary of a master. As such, the karikas are like a verse outline of the major philosophical arguments of an oral tradition.Siderits and Katsura (2013), p. 2.
The text seems to be mainly addressed to a Buddhist audience, particularly those who followed Abhidharma doctrines which held that dharmas are ultimately real and have svabhava (an intrinsic nature).Siderits and Katsura (2013), p. 5. The MMK takes up numerous Buddhist Abhidharma categories and ideas and examines them to show that they are empty and cannot have intrinsic nature. The MMK presents various arguments, mostly reductio in style, such as showing that an idea leads to an infinite regress.Siderits and Katsura (2013), p. 7.
The text begins with the following dedication verse:I salute the Fully Enlightened One, the best of orators, who taught the doctrine of dependent origination, according to which there is neither cessation nor origination, neither annihilation nor the eternal, neither singularity nor plurality, neither the coming nor the going [of any dharma, for the purpose of nirvāṇa characterized by] the auspicious cessation of hypostatization.Siderits and Katsura (2013), p. 13.The dedication sets out the main goal of the MMK, to eliminate conceptual proliferation, reification and hypostatization (prapañca), which expresses itself in different philosophical concepts such as essentialism, eternalism and annihilationism.
The first chapter discusses causation. The main thesis to be defended is given in the first verse:Not from itself, not from another, not from both, nor without cause: Never in any way is there any existing thing that has arisen.Siderits and Katsura (2013), p. 18.To put it another way, the main thesis which Nāgārjuna will defend here is that phenomena (dharmas) do not come into being in any of the following four ways:
By being self-caused, or due to the fact that the effect was already present in the cause (hetu). This view was called satkāryavāda. By being caused by something else (asatkāryavāda), the cause and the effect being distinct entities A combination of both of the above, i.e. the cause and the effect and both identical and different Acausality, phenomena originate without causes (ahetu)
The main view that MMK focuses on debating with is the second one, which is held by Buddhist Abhidharma theorists which put forth four main forms of conditionality: the primary cause (hetu-pratyaya), the objective support (ārambaṇa-pratyaya), the proximate condition (samanantara-pratyaya), and the dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya). The MMK takes up each one in order to refute them, arguing that, for those who hold that cause and effect are distinct, the producing relation can only be a conceptual construction.
Chapter overview The 27 chapters of the MMK are as follows:
: Analysis of conditions : Analysis of going and not going : Analysis of the eye and the other sense-organs : Analysis of the skandhas ("aggregates") : Analysis of the dhatūs ("constituents") : Analysis of desire and the desirous : Analysis of the constructed : Analysis of action and actor : Analysis of the past : Analysis of fire and fuel : Analysis of initial and final limits : Analysis of suffering : Analysis of mental constructions : Analysis of admixture : Analysis of own-nature : Analysis of bondage and liberation : Analysis of action (karma) and its fruit : Analysis of the self (atman). : Analysis of time : Analysis of combination : Analysis of becoming and un-becoming : Analysis of the Tathāgata. : Analysis of Error : Analysis of the Noble Truths : Analysis of : Analysis of the twelve links (of dependent origination) : Analysis of views
The authenticity of the last two chapters is disputed, and they may have been later additions, not composed by Nāgārjuna. However, most ancient commentaries take them to be canonical.
Different scholars divide up the work into different main parts. According to Jay Garfield, the MMK can be divided into four main sections:Garfield (1995), pp. 91-92.
Chapters 1 through 7, which focus on the fundamental theoretical constructs in Buddhist ontology, such as dependent origination, change and impermanence, perception, the five aggregates, the elements or properties of things, and the relation between substance and attribute. All of these are shown to be empty of own-nature or essence. Chapters 8 through 13 focus on the nature of the self and of subjective experience. Chapters 14 through 21 are mainly concerned with the external world and the relation of the self to objects. Chapters 22 through 27 discuss phenomena associated with the ultimate truth, such as buddhahood, emptiness, and nirvana (it is argued that all of these are also empty), as well as the relation of the conventional truth to the ultimate phenomena.
Commentaries As a kārikā-style text, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā presents only aphoristic, often enigmatic and extremely short verses, much like the sūtra works of the various Hindu philosophical schools. Since they served primarily as pedagogical or mnemonic aids for teachers, commentaries were required to make the meaning of this type of text more explicit to the uninitiated reader.
According to the Indian author Avalokitavrata, eight commentaries were written on the MMK: Nagarjuna's self-commentary, and those of Buddhapalita, Candrakirti, Devasharman, Gunashri, Gunamati, Sthiramati, and Bhavaviveka.Nguyen, Cuong Tu. "Sthiramati's Interpretation of Buddhology and Soteriology." PhD diss., p. 33. Harvard University, 1990. Not all of these have survived in full or in the original. Devasharman and Gunamati's commentaries only survive in fragments and nothing is known of Gunashri's.
The Indian commentary called the Akutobhayā, whose authorship is unknown, though is attributed to Nagarjuna in the tradition, is held by Ames to be the earliest commentary on the MMK.Ames, William L. (1993). "Bhāvaviveka's Prajñāpradīpa – A Translation of Chapter One: 'Examinations of Causal Conditions' (Pratyaya)". Journal of Indian Philosophy, 1993, vol.21. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, p.209 C.W. Huntington has suggested that this commentary may not have been considered a separate text, but instead may have been a set of notes which may go back to oral explanations of the root text by Nāgārjuna himself.Westerhoff (2019), p. 122.
The earliest known commentary on the MMK by another author is preserved within the first Chinese translation of the Kārikā, known as the "Middle Treatise" ( Zhong Lun), translated by Kumarajiva in 409. The author of this commentary is given as either "Blue Eyes" (; back translated as *Vimalākṣa) or *Piṅgala (). This is by far the best known commentary in the East Asian Mādhyamaka tradition, forming one of the three commentaries that make up the Sanlun ("Three Treatise") school. An influential figure of the Sanlun school is Jízàng (549–623), who wrote a commentary on the Middle Treatise in Chinese, the Zhongguanlun shu ().