Mūlamadhyamakakārikā Totally Explained

Everything about M Lamadhyamakak Rik totally explained

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Devanagari: मूलमध्यमककारिका), or Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, is a key text by Nagarjuna, one of the most important Buddhist philosophers. It now stands at the centre of modern philosophical analysis of the Madhyamaka philosophy, which is rapidly proliferating to match the rich and varied commentarial tradition that the text has accumulated over the centuries since its composition (most likely in the 2nd century).

Competing interpretations

The argument is unusually susceptible to interpretation, as it's expressed almost wholly as a series of often cryptic refutations. We may classify the divergent treatments of the Madhyamakakārikā under three headings: those presenting the text as an appendix to a previously established philosophical tradition, those reading the text as a poem to subsequent philosophical developments, and those that would present it as philosophical teaching unto itself. For a brief example of each, we may consider that the modern Theravādins have represented the text as a mere recapitulation of early Buddhist anātman-theory (for example, the Buddha's rejection of a transcendent self), various Mahāyāna schools have regarded the text as the basis for their metaphysics (as with the Yogacara in India, or the Hua-Yen in China), and the [[Prasangika|]] school (led by Candrakīrti) regarded the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā as a definitive manual on method, allowing of little in the way of further development and taking little interest in text's sources in the Śrāvaka Sutras.
It is to be observed that Nāgārjuna's other works are not nearly so constrained in form, and have not been given a place of equal prominence in modern scholarship. This is sometimes attributable to misgivings over the authenticity of other texts (many of which are not extant in Sanskrit), but is sometimes due to sectarian biases. The openness of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā to interpretation and re-interpretation has garnered the interest of diverse religious and secular schools, and has at the same time fostered a reluctance to interpret it in light of the same author's other, less ambiguous writings.

Form and content of the text

The early chapters

The early chapters of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (hereafter, MMK), deal mostly with basic metaphysical categories like causation, time, and agency. In general, they pose questions regarding the basic categories of Indian philosophy, trying to acertain what are the conditions necessary for these concepts to be coherent and non-contradictory. Nāgārjuna's conclusion is uniformly negative; he finds that none of these ideas are self-sufficient, and as such none can found any of the others; there are no viable foundations. These chapters are:

: Analysis of conditions
: Analysis of going and not going
: Analysis of the eye and the other sense-organs
: Analysis of the skandhas ((mental) "aggregates")
: Analysis of the dhatūs ("constituents" or "strata" (in the sense of metaphysical substrata))
: Analysis of passion and the impassioned
: Analysis of the conditioned
: Analysis of action and actor
: Analysis of the past
: Analysis of fire and fuel
: Analysis of past and future limits
: Analysis of suffering

The later chapters

In these chapters, Nāgārjuna begins to move away from simply negating others' concepts and begins, slowly, to put forward some assertions of his own. In these chapters, Nāgārjuna puts forth his boldest reasoning, including such assertions as:

The Buddhist Concept of Emptiness of all things (for example, all things, including the Buddha, have no inherent existence)

The identity of pratītyasamutpāda with śunyatā

The indifferentiability of [[nirvana|]] from [[samsara|]]

The tentative or merely conventional nature of all truth . These chapters are as follows; note the clustering of 24-26, and also the nature of the last chapter:

13. : Analysis of disposition

14. : Analysis of admixture

15. : Analysis of being or essence

16. : Analysis of bondage and liberation

17. : Analysis of action and its fruit

18. : Analysis of the soul.

19. : Analysis of time

20. : Analysis of holism

21. : Analysis of becoming and un-becoming

22. : Analysis of the Tathāgata

23. : Analysis of Error

24. : Analysis of the Noble Truths

25. : Analysis of

26. : Analysis of the twelvefold chain (of dependent origination)

27. : Analysis of views

Nāgārjuna's opponents

To some extent the refutations that make up the bulk of the text may be supposed to have been intended for the benefit of definite, historical schools of opponents. The amount that we may know about Nāgārjuna's contemporaries will remain limited, and it's reasonable to suppose that Nāgārjuna largely made his opponents' doctrines a convenience for unfolding his own, as he took no trouble (in this text) to give a balanced view or summary of what he argued against. Most commonly, we've only a few words of each objection from the interlocutor before Nāgārjuna proceeds to refute the error at length. The extent to which the author may have misrepresented his opponents out of convenience may never be known. Some portions of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā certainly appear to have been polemics against the ontology (and cosmology) of the, and others seem to target the Pudgalavāda school. The influence of early Lankāvatāra texts may be surmised, but the paucity of early manuscripts of the latter has left its historical significance open as another matter of speculation. It may also be the case that Nagarjuna considered himself part of the longstanding Buddhist tradition of composing manuals of the correct answers to common questions from laypeople, and refutations of false views directed at monks by skeptics, or members of rival religions. "Manuals" of this nature are found in Abhidhamma, as well as in quasi-canonical works such as the Milinda Panha ("The questions of King Menander"), and are prefigured to some extent in the Suttapitaka by tracts such as the "Brahma's Net of False Views Sutra". Thus, we must leave open the possibility that Nagarjuna had no specific opponents or rival schools in mind, but instead composed the verses as a memoriter "manual" to prepare students or monks for debates, questions, or fallacies they might encounter from various camps, within or without the Buddhist community.

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and epistemology

The Madhyamakakārikā provides us with a theory of knowledge and a "critique of reason". Those who have read the text as a philosophy unto itself (for example, the Prasangikas) have emphasized the extent to which understanding the limitations of knowledge and reasoning precludes the need for metaphysics or even for "truths", "standpoints", and other certainties. For the Prasangikas, all teachings are merely conventional. Their predominant method of argumentation is by reductio ad absurdum, "" in Sanskrit. For them, the exposition of śūnyatā is merely a way of pointing to the absence of any essence or foundation, whether in terms of metaphysical substance or in terms of epistemological truth.
   However, many Mahayana schools have made this very teaching of emptiness the basis of their systems of speculative constructions, cosmologies, ethics, and metaphysics. The Theravada interpretation, on the other hand, (which has come to prominence only recently) suggests that Nāgārjuna neither intended to preclude metaphysics (with a perfect system of reasoning) nor to found a new system of thought. The purpose of the text, so this argument goes, was to counteract certain misinterpretations that had sprung up around the Buddha's original teaching of anatman (literally "no soul" or "no self"). Simplicity might seem to favour the latter treatment, but to apply Nāgārjuna's interpretation of anatman (namely, extending it to all entities equally, including dharmas) to the Shravaka Sutras (not to mention the Abhidharmapitaka) would either throw the Theravadin canon into considerable self-contradiction, or call for a thoroughgoing re-interpretation of the Buddha's original teaching.
   The Madhyamakakārikā's ultimate purpose, we should remember, wasn't to stake out a sectarian position (a "", or "view"). Nāgārjuna repeatedly and emphatically states that to make a "fixed view" of his teaching is to miss its point. The purpose of the Madhyamakakārikā's short course in reasoning is soteriological: to demonstrate the fallacy of clinging to views (or any standpoint whatever, however valid or true) and, in so doing, to remove an obstacle to enlightenment. For this reason it may be described as an "anti-philosophy" as well as a philosophy in its own right.
   As the text concludes,

27:30

Translations

Author	Title	Publisher	Date	Notes
Batchelor, Steven	Verses from the Center	Diane Publishing	2000	Batchelor's translation is the first nonacademic, idiomatic English version of the text.
Garfield, Jay L.	The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way	Oxford University Press	1995	A translation of the Tibetan version together with commentary.
Inada, Kenneth K.	Nagarjuna: A Translation of his Mulamadhyamakakarika With an Introductory Essay	The Hokuseido Press	1970	Romanized text and translation.
Kalupahana, David J.	Nagarjuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way	State University of New York Press	1986	Romanized text, translation, and commentary.
McCagney, N.	Nagarjuna and the Philosophy of Openness	Rowman & Littlefield	1997	Romanized text, translation and philosophical analysis.
Sprung, M.	Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way	Prajna Press, Boulder	1979	Partial translation of the verses together with Chandrakirti's commentary.
Streng, Frederick	Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning	Abdingdon Press	1967	Translation and considerable analysis.

Quotations

1:1

� Neither from itself nor from another,

Nor from both, � Nor without a cause,

Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.

15:10

� अस्तीति शाश्वतग्राहो नास्तीत्युच्चेददर्शनं

    � : (To say) "Is," is eternity-grasping; (to say) "Is not," is a nihilistic view.

    तस्माद् अस्तित्वनास्तित्वे नाश्रीयेत विचक्षणः। � |

   : Therefore, those of discerning vision wouldn't have recourse to Is-ness and Is-not-ness.

16:10

� न निर्वाणसमारोपो न संसारापकषणम्

� यत्र कस्तत्र संसारो निर्वाणं किं विकल्प्यते

� : Where there's neither an addition of nirvana nor a removal of samsara; There, what samsara is discriminated from what nirvana?

18:6-12

� ātmetya api prajñapitam anātmetyapi deśitam

   : Although (the term) "self" is caused to be known (of, about), and although (a doctrine or teaching of) "no self" is taught, � | 6

   : No "self" or any "nonself" whatsoever has been taught by the Buddhas. �

   : The designable is ceased when/where the range of thought is ceased, � | 7

   : Nirvana is like phenomenality, unarisen and unstopping. �

   : Everything is actual, or not actual, or actual and not actual � | 8

   : Or neither actual nor not actual; this is the Buddha's teaching. �

   : Independent, peaceful, not delusionally diversified by delusional diversification � | 9

   : Devoid of mental construction, without variation, this is the mark of thatness. � pratītya yad yad bhavati na hi tāvat tad eva tad

   : Whatsoever becomes dependently, isn't insofar, that and only that. � | 10

   : Nor is it the other; therefore, it's neither exterminated nor eternal. � anekārtham anānārtham anuccedam aśāśvatam

   : Not singular, not plural, not exterminated, not eternal, � | 11

   : This is the immortal teaching of the Buddhas, lords of the world. �

   : And again, when the disciples are destroyed and full Buddhas don't arrive, � |12

   : The gnosis (knowledge, etc.) of the independently enlightened Buddhas proceeds without association (with teachings).

22:11

� "Empty" shouldn't be said (or "would be impossible to say"), nor should "Nonempty",

nor "both and neither"; but they're spoken of for the purpose of praj~naptification. (Causing some gnosis/wisdom, or causing gnosis/wisdom of something; "teaching")

22:16

� तथागतो यत्स्वभावस्तत्स्वभावमिदं जगत

tathāgato yat svabhāvas tat svabhāvam idam jagat � : What is the nature of the thus-gone one (the Buddha), that's the nature of the world.

� तथागतो निःस्वभावो निःस्वभावम् इदं जगत्। १६

| 16 � : The thus-gone one is devoid of nature; the world is devoid of nature.

24:18

� What is dependent origination, that we call emptiness.

It is the middle way proceeding, having had recourse to teaching. (Note: probably teaching by upāya, or "expedients")

25:19-20

� न संसारस्य निर्वाणात् किं चिद् अस्ति विशेषणं

    � : There is nothing whatsoever of samsara distinguishing (it) from nirvana.

    न निर्वाणस्य संसारात् किं चिद् अस्ति विशेषणं। १९ � | 19

   : There is nothing whatsoever of nirvana distinguishing it from samsara. � निर्वाणस्य च या कोटिः।कोटिः। संसरणस्य च

    � : (That?) is the limit which is the limit of nirvana and the limit of samsara;

    न तयोर् अन्तरं किंचित् सुसूक्ष्मम् अपि विद्यते। २० � | 20

   : Even a very subtle interval isn't found of (between) them.

25:22-24

�

    | 22 �

    | 23 �

    | � : When all dharmas are empty, what is endless? What has an end?

   : What is endless and with an end? What isn't endless and not with an end? � : What is "it"? What is "other"? What is permanent? What is impermanent?

   : What is impermanent and permanent? What is neither? � : Auspicious is the pacification of phenomenal metastasis, the pacification of all apprehending;

   : There is no dharma whatsoever taught by the Buddha to whomever whenever, wherever.

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