NAGARJUNA

Nagarjuna is one of the most idealized of all literary Buddhist figures, and has been associated with a wide variety of mythical adventures. One point on which all agree concerns his visit to the subterranean naga kingdom of serpents, where he rediscovered the long-lost prajnaparamita sutras.* He was thereafter known by the name Nagarjuna – the Arjuna† among the Nâgas.

Scholars also agree that Nagarjuna's writings form the basis of the Madhyamika (middle way) school, avoiding the harmful extremes of indulgence and austerity, between mere intellectualization and simple meditative absorption, between inherent existence and utter non-existence. Nagarjuna developed a dialectical logic that undermines any possibility of philosophical certitude and provokes direct, non-dualistic insight into reality. Nagarjuna’s work was adopted by the dominant order of Tibetan Buddhists – the Gelukpas– as the foundation for their principal practice of debate.

The combined influence of Kurt Gödel, Albert Einstein and their early twentieth-century contemporaries arguably opened the Western mind to Nagarjuna's rational approach to the non-rational.

* The 'wisdom-practices' said to have been initially taught several hundred years earlier by Gotama Buddha and subsequently lost

† Arjuna fought alongside Krishna, the greatest warrior of Hindu mythology, against the forces of darkness

QUOTE

"Samsâra equals nirvâna."