Unlikely Glossary Project
MMK

2 Form and content of the text

2.1 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 is are the conditions necessary for these concepts to be coherent and non-contradictory. Nāgārjuna’s conclusion is uniformly negative; he finds that non of these ideas are self-sufficient, and as such none can found any of the others; there are no viable foundations. These chapters are:

• 1. Pratyayaparīkṣā: Analysis of conditions
  
• 2. Gatāgataparīkṣā: Analysis of going and not going
  
• 3. Cakṣurādīndriyaparīkṣā: Analsyis of the eye and the other sense-organs
  
• 4. Skandhaparīkṣā: Analsyis of the skandhas ((mental) “aggregates”)
  
• 5. Dhātuparīkṣā: Analysis of the dhatūs (“constitutents” or “strata” (in the sense of metaphysical substrata))
  
• 6. Rāraktaparīkṣā: Analysis of passion and the impassioned
  
• 7. Saṃskṛtaparīkṣā: Analysis of the conditioned
  
• 8. Karmakārakaparīkṣā: Analysis of action and actor
  
• 9. Pūrvaparīkṣā: Analysis of the past
  
• 10. Agnīndhanaparīkṣā: Analysis of fire and fuel
  
• 11. Pūrvaparakoṭiparīkṣā: Analysis of past and future limits
  
• 12 duḥkhaparīkṣā: Analysis of suffernig
  

2.2 The later chapters

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

• The emptiness of all things (i.e., all things, including the Buddha, are without a nature) (MMK#22:26)
  
• The identity of pratītyasamutpāda with śūnyatā (MMK#24:18)
  
• The indifferentiability of nirvāṇa from saṃsāra (MMK#16:10)(MMK#25:19-20)
  
• The tentative or merely conventional nature of all truth (MMK#22:11).
  

These chapters are as follows; note the clustering of 24-26, and also the nature of the last chapter:

• 13. Saṃskāraparīkṣā: Analysis of disposition
  
• 14. Saṃsargaparīkṣā: Analysis of admixture
  
• 15. Svabhāvaparīkṣā: Analysis of being or essence
  
• 16. Bandhanamokṣaparīkṣā: Analysis of bondage and liberation
  
• 17. Karmaphalaparīkṣa: Analysis of action and its fruit
  
• 18. Ātmaparīkṣā: Analysis of the soul.
  
• 19. Kālaparīkṣā: Analysis of time
  
• 20. Sāmagrīparīkṣā: Analysis of holism
  
• 21. Saṃbhavavibhavaparīkṣā: Analysis of becoming and un-becoming
  
• 22. Tathāgataparīkṣā: Analysis of the Tathāgata
  
• 23. Viparyāsaparīkṣā: Analysis of Error
  

• 24. Āryasatyaparīkṣā: Analysis of the Noble Truths
  
• 25. Nirvāṇaparīkṣā: Analysis of nirvāṇa
  
• 26. Dvādaśaṅgaparīkṣā: Analysis of the twelvefold chain (of dependent origination)
  

• 27. Dṛṣṭiparīkṣā: Analysis of views
  

2.3 Nāgārjuna's opponents

To some extent the refutations that comprise 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 is 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 have 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 Māha-Vaibhāṣa-Abhidharma-Shāstra, and others seem to target the Pudgalavāda school. The influence of early La{{msg:nN}kāvatāra texts may be surmised, but the paucity of early manuscripts of the latter has left its historical significance open as another matter of speculation.

3 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 (e.g., 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.

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 thorough-going re-interpretation of the Buddha’s original teaching.

The Madhyamakakārikā’s ultimate purpose, we should remember, was not to stake out a sectarian position (a “dṛṣṭi”, 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,

3.1 27:30

Sarvadṛṣṭiprahānāya yaḥ saddharmamadeśat
Anukampām upādāya taṃ namasyāmi gautamaṃ
I bow to Gautama, who, having taken up compassion, taught the true dharma for forsaking all views.

4 Translations

Author	Title	Publisher	Notes
Garfield, J L	The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way	Oxford, 1995	A translation of the Tibetan version together with commentary
Inada, K	Mulamadhyamakakarika	Hokuseido, 1970	A translation of the verses only.
Kalupahana, D J	The Philosophy of the Middle Way	SUNY, 1986	Translation and commentary
Sprung M	Lucid exposition of the Middle Way	RKP, 1979	Partial translation of the verses together with Chandrakirti's commentary.
McCagney, N	Nagarjuna and the Philosophy of Openness	Rowman & Littlefield, c1997	Translation and Philosophical analysis

5 Quotations

5.1 15:10

• अस्तीति शाश्वतग्राहो नास्तीत्युच्चेददर्शनं
  
• astīti śāśvatagrāho nāstītyuccedadarśanaṁ
  
  • (To say) “Is,” is eternity-grasping; (to say) “Is not,” is a nihilistic view.”
    
  
  
• तस्माद् अस्तित्वनास्तित्वे नाश्रीयेत विचक्षणः।
  
• tasmād astitvanāstitve nāśrīyeta vicakṣaṇaḥ|
  
  • Therefore, those of discerning vision would not have recourse to Is-ness and Is-not-ness.
    
  
  

5.2 16:10

• न निर्वाणसमारोपो न संसारापकषणम्
  
• na nirvāṇasamāropo na saṁsārāpakaṣaṇam
  
• यत्र कस्तत्र संसारो निर्वाणं किं विकल्प्यते
  
• yatra kastatra saṁsāro nirvāṇaṁ kiṁ vikalpyate
  
  • Where there is neither an addition of nirvana nor a removal of samsara; There, what samsara is discriminated from what nirvana?
    
  
  

5.3 18:6-12

• ātmetya api praj��tam anātmetyapi deśitam
  
  • Although (the term) “self” is caused to be known (of, about), and although (a doctrine or teaching of) “no self” is taught,
    
  
  
• buddhair nātmā na cānātmā kaścid ity api deśitaṁ| 6
  
  • No “self” or any “nonself” whatsoever has been taught by the Buddhas.
    
  
  
• nivṛtam abhidhātavyaṁ nivṛtte cittagocare
  
  • The designable is ceased when/where the range of thought is ceased,
    
  
  
• anutpannāniruddhā hi nirvāṇam iva dharmatā| 7
  
  • Nirvana is like phenomenality, unarisen and unstopping.
    
  
  
• sarvaṁ tathyaṁ na vā tathyaṁ tathyaṁ cātathyam eva ca
  
  • Everything is actual, or not actual, or actual and not actual
    
  
  
• naivātathyaṁ naiva tathyam etad buddhānuśāsanaṁ| 8
  
  • Or neither actual nor not actual; this is the Buddha’s teaching.
    
  
  
• aparapratyayaṁ śāntaṁ prapa��r aprapa��aṁ
  
  • Independent, peaceful, not delusionally diversified by delusional diversification
    
  
  
• nirvikalpam anānārtham etat tattvasya lakśaṇaṁ| 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, is not insofar, that and only that.
    
  
  
• na cānyad api tat tasmān noccinnaṁ nāpi śāśvataṁ| 10
  
  • Nor is it the other; therefore, it is neither exterminated nor eternal.
    
  
  
• anekārtham anānārtham anuccedam aśāśvatam
  
  • Not singular, not plural, not exterminated, not eternal,
    
  
  
• etat tal lokanāthānāṁ bhuddhānāṁ śāsanāmṛtaṁ| 11
  
  • This is the immortal teaching of the Buddhas, lords of the world.
    
  
  
• sambhuddhānām anutpāde śrāvakāṇāṁ punaḥ kśaye
  
  • And again, when the disciples are destroyed and full Buddhas do not arrive,
    
  
  
• j��p;#257;naṁ pratyekabuddhānām asamsargāt pravartate|12
  
  • The gnosis (knowledge, etc.) of the independently enlightened Buddhas proceeds without association (with teachings).
    
  
  

5.4 22:11

“Empty” should not be said (or “would be impossible to say”), nor should “Nonempty”,
nor “both and neither”; but they are spoken of for the purpose of prajnaptification. (Causing some gnosis/wisdom, or causing gnosis/wisdom of something; “teaching”)

5.5 22:16

• तथागतो यत्स्वभावस्तत्स्वभावमिदं जगत
  
• tathāgato yat svabhāvas tat svabhāvam idam jagat
  
  • What is the nature of the thus-gone one (the Buddha), that is the nature of the world.
    
  
  

• तथागतो निःस्वभावो निःस्वभावम् इदं जगत्। १६
  
• tathāgato niḥsvabhāvo niḥsvabhāvam idaṁ jagat| 16
  
  • The thus-gone one is devoid of nature; the world is devoid of nature.
    
  
  

5.6 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”)
  

5.7 25:19-20

• न संसारस्य निर्वाणात् किं चिद् अस्ति विशेषणं
  
• na saṁsārasya nirvāṇāt kiṁ cid asti viśeṣaṇaṁ
  
  • There is nothing whatsoever of samsara distinguishing (it) from nirvana.
    
  
  
• न निर्वाणस्य संसारात् किं चिद् अस्ति विशेषणं। १९
  
• na nirvāṇasya saṁsārāt kiṁ cid asti viśeṣaṇaṁ| 19
  
  • There is nothing whatsoever of nirvana distinguishing it from samsara.
    
  
  
• निर्वाणस्य च या कोटिः।कोटिः। संसरणस्य च
  
• nirvāṇasya ca yā koṭiḥ koṭiḥ| saṁsaraṇasya ca
  
  • (That?) is the limit which is the limit of nirvana and the limit of samsara;
    
  
  
• न तयोर् अन्तरं किंचित् सुसूक्श्मम् अपि विद्यते। २०
  
• na tayor antaraṁ ki�� susūkśmam api vidyate| 20
  
  • Even a very subtle interval is not found of (between) them.
    
  
  

5.8 25:22-24

• śūnyeṣu sarvadharmeṣu kim anantaṁ kimantavat
  
• kim anantam antavac ca nānantaṁ nāntavacca kiṁ| 22
  
• kiṁ tad eva kim anyat kiṁ śāśvataṁ kim aśāśvataṁ
  
• aśāśvataṁ śāśvataṁ ca kiṁ vā nobhayam apyataḥ ‘tha| 23
  
• sarvopalambhpaśamaḥ prapa��aśamaḥ śivaḥ
  
• na kva cit kasyacit kaścid dharmo buddhena deśitaḥ|
  
  • When all dharmas are empty, what is endless? What has an end?
    
  • What is endless and with an end? What is not 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.