Nagarjuna's Middle Way

Mulamadhyamakakarika.
By Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura.
Nagarjunas Mulamadhyamakakarikas is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Its 27 chapters contain a wide variety of arguments meant to support the central Mahayana doctrine of emptiness. This translation uses the four surviving Indian commentaries to try to arrive at an understanding that comes as close as possible to what was originally intended. The verses are accompanied by a running commentary that tries to explain their content without straying far beyond the consensus among the original commentators. The aim has been to produce a translation that balances the demands of historical fidelity, accessibility, and philosophical intelligibility. It is the product of a collaboration between scholars with overlapping but distinct and complementary areas of expertise: one is a renowned Buddhologist well known for his work on Sanskrit texts, the other is a philosopher who looks to both contemporary philosophy and classical Indian philosophy for insightful arguments. The translation and commentary are preceded by a brief introduction laying out the historical context and describing some of the common argumentative strategies Nagarjuna will employ in the defense of his interesting and novel stance.