Nagarjuna (150–250)
Born 150 CE, died 250 CE.
Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit, from Nāga + Arjuna; Chn. Lóngshù 龍樹; Tib. Klu sgrub; c. 150 – c. 250 CE) was an Indian scholar-monk, philosopher, and teacher (acharya) of Mahayana Buddhism from south India. He is considered the founder of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. Nāgārjuna is widely considered to be the most important Buddhist philosopher after the Buddha himself. Indeed, in Tibetan Buddhism, he is even called the "second Buddha". He was a well known defender of the Mahāyāna movement and his treatises (śāstras) are the foundational texts of a school of Buddhist philosophy known as the view of emptiness (Śūnyatāvāda) or Madhyamaka. Nāgārjuna remains a key figure in all contemporary traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and his philosophical writings on the doctrine of “emptiness” (śūnyatā) influenced Indian philosophy for a millennium, as well as being an indispensable doctrinal source for Mahāyāna doctrine in East Asian Buddhism and Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Root Verses on Madhyamaka, MMK) is the most important text on the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness.
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