The Fundamental Wisdom Of The Middle Way Nagarjuna
by Jay L Garfield
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The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika
Audible Audiobook – UnabridgedNāgārjuna (Author), Jay L. Garfield - Translator (Author), Zehra Jane Naqvi (Narrator), Tantor Audio (Publisher)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 208 ratings
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The Buddhist saint Nāgārjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher. His greatest philosophical work, the Mūlamadhyamikakārikā - read and studied by philosophers in all major Buddhist schools of Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea - is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy.
Now, in The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Jay L. Garfield provides a clear translation of Nāgārjuna's seminal work, offering those with little or no prior knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the Mūlamadhyamikakārikā. Garfield presents a superb translation of the Tibetan text of Mūlamadhyamikakārikā in its entirety and a commentary reflecting the Tibetan tradition through which Nāgārjuna's philosophical influence has largely been transmitted. Illuminating the systematic character of Nāgārjuna's reasoning, Garfield shows how Nāgārjuna develops his doctrine that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, that is, than nothing exists substantially or independently. He offers a verse-by-verse commentary that explains Nāgārjuna's positions and arguments in the language of Western metaphysics and epistemology and connects Nāgārjuna's concerns to those of Western philosophers.
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©1995 Jay L. Garfield (P)2021 Tantor
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Listening Length 12 hours and 4 minutes
Author Nāgārjuna, Jay L. Garfield - translator
Narrator Zehra Jane Naqvi
Audible.com.au Release Date 13 July 2021
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Best Sellers Rank 44,285 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
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Customer reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
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Carlo Dolif
5.0 out of 5 stars ExcellentReviewed in Italy on 17 September 2021
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Excellent
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Djamel
5.0 out of 5 stars Nargarjuna’s teaching well commented. InsightfulReviewed in France on 20 May 2020
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Fabulous book!!
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Lynette
5.0 out of 5 stars Five StarsReviewed in Canada on 7 December 2016
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Good
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Theatermann
5.0 out of 5 stars Great commentary on an epochal workReviewed in Germany on 1 January 2016
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With this book - his masterpiece, which he himself probably won't be able to top - Garfield provides a commentary on Nagarjuna's main philosophical work that is as profound as it is easy to read. Garfield succeeds in breaking down the difficult and often almost incomprehensible original text in an immediately comprehensible way and presenting the lines of argument in such a way that both the outstanding intellectual power of the 1800-year-old text emerges as well as its possible meaning for today Philosophize. In doing so, he neither blurs the differences to our current European thinking nor pushes the text into an “oriental” distance. This book is definitely not part of Western wellness Buddhism and would be out of place on the richly stocked esoteric shelves of our bookstores. In short: It is one of the most important and insightful books for anyone who seriously wants to know something about Buddhist thought, especially Madhyamaka.
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T Wright.
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best.Reviewed in the United States on 22 June 2010
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(redaction & addendum of previous review)
In reading the entire text, i found the arguements quite overwelming, however the beginning buddhist is not without help. In searching for applicatons to the examinations it can be said that madhyamaka is the synthsis of all other schools. This is a great starting place for organization. monastics usually study these topics for 20 years intensively , they relate most to the abidharma. Having said this , i would reccomend Geshe Tashi Tsering's Foundations book series, especially Relative truth , ultimate truth ( Vol 2) as the companion to this text. In learning the divisions of the two truths by the four major schools one may place the examinations of nagarjuna in thier context and avoid misintrepretation which garfield says " the danger is to mistakenly view the subtleties of emptiness as nihlism". ( paraphrase) So this would be a great guide to the study applicaton and classification of the book's chapters .. July 8, 2010
I am not a monk, nor have i been given a systematic , structured schooling in buddhist philosophy. My review is based solely upon comparison with my limited understanding of the subtleties of madhyamaka. Nagarjuna is called a master by many prominent buddhist thinkers, to note Tsong khapa. It is said that Nagarjuna is an "Arya" being. "Arya" meaning sees all subtle levels of Dukkha. ( Rather elementary) However it is said repeadedly that without ethics,concentration and then wisdom the madhaymaka is an enigma. Thats why the dalai lama explains it as such. Presupposing the student has built this foundation - Ethics, Concentration, Wisdom. Then one is ready for Madhyamaka.
Garfield gives the best version to western philosophers. I would caution though taking Garfield's view as the monastic view. Even though he gives a great explanation , thouroughly extensive and simplifies deep points in the madhyamaka, he is not able to approach it from the soterilogical point of view, as compared to that of an Arya being. in the madhyamakaavatara, which is like an introduction to Nagarjuna, chandrakirti says that he isn't even an Arya, of the 6th bhumi. Im sure Garfield would agree, that to have a thourough understanding of this text one would have to explain from that view.
This text would be greatly understanded by the most extensive commentary extant by Rje Tsong Khapa. (Ocean of reasoning) with this commentary one would get the jest of the major commentaries from Chandrakirti, Buddhapalita, and Tsong Khapa. Ocean is a great companion to this text.
With this in mind this version of Nagarjuna's seminal treatise is the best buddhist book available, aside from Lamrim Chenmo.
100% gift to the west, Thank you Garfield,Newland and everyone else for this gift to us all.
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Nicholas R. Hunter
4.0 out of 5 stars Demanding but satisfying
Reviewed in the United States on 16 November 2001
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As Garfield states in the introduction, his analysis of the text is more from an analytical, Western philosophical perspective than from a "Buddhalogical" (his word) one. The result is authoritative, scholarly and a little dry. His presentation reminds me of David Brazier's presentation of the Abhidharma in his book "Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind." The experience of reading this book is very demanding, but also very satisfying. The benefits to be derived are probably directly proportional with the work one puts in to understanding it.
A more poetically compelling translation of the Mulamadhyamikakarika, along with a very thought-provoking introduction, is to be found in Stephen Batchelor's "Verses from the Center."
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Alex
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 April 2017
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Essential reading for any Buddhist, or even anyone truly interested in philosophy and the nature of reality. A deep and difficult but ultimately worthy read.
3 people found this helpful
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Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Rating an ancient classic? Really?
Reviewed in the United States on 27 August 2015
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Amazon requested a review. It seems beyond absurd to "rate" an ancient classic text. This is a classic ancient Buddhist text, accompanied by a scholarly and deeply insightful commentary by Jay Garfield. It has academic value as well as value for serious practitioners in any of the major Buddhist traditions. It's not a bedtime read - you would not read it unless you already had a commitment to understanding the approach of this seminal Buddhist thinker and shaper of the tradition (Nagarjuna). Again, too silly to give it a rating, but I just did.
6 people found this helpful
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Werner
5.0 out of 5 stars Eternally true
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 July 2013
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As a study work of just for reference then this book does cover the basic philosophical epithets of Buddhist philosophy.
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Brian
5.0 out of 5 stars Difficult in the beginning but it's worth it
Reviewed in the United States on 1 March 2019
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A very detailed commentary and helpful guide through Nagarjuna's fundamental verses. Very digestible for astute lay philosophers and others interested in gaining deeper knowledge of Buddhist studies. Because it can be challenging, I would not recommend if you don't already have some experience with Buddhist texts.
3 people found this helpful
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Mudrooroo Nyoongah
5.0 out of 5 stars I recommend this book
Reviewed in the United States on 11 September 2017
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Ah Buddhism and the emptiness of everything thing and subject. To seek to uderstand the Buddhist Doctrine of Emptiness, I recommend this book. It is not easy going, but work your way through it and then again if you like following an argument.
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philip hynes
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2015
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Superb
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars interesting
Reviewed in the United States on 15 April 2020
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great exploration and elucidation of the topic
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buddhavanhalen
5.0 out of 5 stars Mind boggling and yet unfathomable great
Reviewed in the United States on 17 April 2017
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Just read and see for yourself. It's hard to understand in just one read I think, but I hope to have a firm "grasp" on it soon.
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TOM CORBETT
3.0 out of 5 stars attachment to emptiness
Reviewed in the United States on 21 January 2007
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i have not studied all of nagarjunas logic carefully in this book, it seems that he is arguing for the underlying emptiness of all things on the basis of his assumption of dependent or mutual arising. perhaps its a bit more complicated than this though. a cup of tea is not a cup of tea in itself. nor does the teabag have any individual or inherent identity, rather the teabag is a collection of collections without any individuality. just as my finger is a collection of cells, so a teabag is a combination of dependent things. infact he believes that everything depends on the presence or absence of something else. tea leaves depend on the presence of tanins, flavins, cells, maturation, drying, there is nothing inherently existent that could be called the individuality of the teabag. this of course defies common sense, but is reasonable. why cannot a collection be at one and the same time an individuality. ie one in many, or many as one. such an argument though would be contrary to nagarjunas thrust, which is to emphasise the existence of emptiness through dependence. ie everything that is dependent has no individual uniqueness (or soul) since all individuals are merely collections.
i am still studying nagarjuna, it seems that a statement such as "walker is not the same as walking, nor is it different from walking" can be argued any way which can. "walker is not the same as walking, if it were how could the two be told apart, nor is walker different from walking, or otherwise there would be walking without walker." it could be argued on the grounds of oneness that walker and walking are one and the same, that structure and function are inseperable. you could just as easily say that walker is the same as walking and that is why there isnt walking without walker. if nagarjuna says that legs are not the same as arms because they can be told apart he is right, because they can be told apart, but wrong because arms and legs are all part of one body and cannot be separated. so paradoxically one can say that walker and walking are not the same, but one can also say that they are the same (the same body/oneness).
it can be argued that walker is walking, walker is not walking, and as nagarjuna says walker is not the same as, nor different from walking. infact whatever you seek to prove, if you are clever enough, you can prove it. this is the nature of reason and logic. a donkey that is lead by the carrot of the person who possesses it.
i find his logic is clear (it is)infact, it is pure genius, but as with all logic one has to realise that at this moment logic is thoroughly illogical. though perhaps when he wrote it was thoroughly logical. logic being logical? logic being illogical? two sides of the same coin. if logical can be illogical why discuss something as important as emptiness using logic? this defies a common understanding of nagarjuna, unless of course he wished to impress buddhist emptiness upon the minds of the common people. or, perhaps he really did believe in the immutable logos (reason) of plato. that insoluble all pervasive notion of truth. personally i see that reason has its uses (many of them groundbreaking and earth shattering), but can often be used to say what you want, especially when it comes to philosophy.
i find the argument for emptiness grounded in dependent arising 'can' be compelling, or not compelling. its just how you approach it. in that a collection does not necessarily indicate an individuality, it could be seen as a collective, for example a sea sponge colony 'may' have no singular conscious individuality as the colony as a whole, but then a human being is a collection with a consciousness . but as i see it, dependent arising could be used as a proof against emptiness just as much as a proof for it. i believe that the buddha would have days where he took time out from such an approach, that is he would respect the agile logical display of nagarjuna, but have said "not on mondays nagarjuna" (but only if you dont mind my friend).
i dont think that the buddha was about dogmatising certain concepts and words such as emptiness, as useful as they may be. even freedom can become an obstacle to relationship and his word "liberation" can be in buddhism taken to mean many different things. it may just be that mental freedom and freedom from suffering are synonymous. emptiness is representative of water and air, but one should not forget the presence of fire, or gold (earth)(male elements)that are representative of fullness/form. to argue away form for emptiness seems unbalanced. just as to argue away emptiness for form would be unbalanced, though it may be an interesting excercise (and not too difficult). infact rising to the challenge if one looks in minute detail/huge magnification at an area of space one will find it a quantum soup, and not nearly as empty as one expected. infact buddha is implacable when he says emptiness is form for this could imply that there is no emptiness, only form. or visa-versa one could argue that all is empty.
i have also read nagarjunas, i think its called the flower garland, which was less a discussion of emptiness and logical proof for such, though his approach in the middle way comes across in this book too. no, i remember now its called the discourse of the precious flower garland.
i realise that my comments on nagarguna's mulamadhyamakakarika may seem disrespectful regarding the buddhist saint, and have no desire to show disrespect, but i do feel that all in all, though brilliant his arguments are not compelling ground for emptiness. this is because i am aware of the bias behind reason. there are other ways to illustrate emptiness. the buddhas "emptiness is form" for example is a much clearer statement of anti-logic, that i find very elegant. also the prescence of the zero in any effective numerical system requires a hypothetical emptiness.
i have no doubt that in the original tongue nagarjuna was a marvellous poet, sadly this does not come across in this translation or in "verses from the centre" a different translation of the same work. perhaps, in his poetic form his genius would have shone out as much as it does from his rational genius.
this is an interesting book to read, a fascinating insight into the mind of an early buddhist saint and an example of how one can use logic to prove anything, even that which intuitively seems almost impossible. but personally i dont feel it tells me anything, other than showing patterns of logic, which are a useful thing to aquire. i must say though that i am 'astonished' by the mans logical dexterity.
i would have found nagarjuna more interesting if he had tried to prove the existence of form and balanced this with a proof for the existence of emptiness. for in truth it is not balanced to prove the existence of emptiness without proving the existence of form. and you cannot prove the existence of emptiness without proving the existence of form, for emptiness is form. it can be argued that all is emptiness, but it can also be argued that all is form. whatever you look for is whatever you find. such is the nature of reality. seek and you will find.
infact... making things fun, and killing the buddhas word, i would say that "form is not emptiness, form is form" is just as true as "emptiness is form". this is the buddas freedom. playing with logic, one does not take reason too seriously on mondays, but... aah, on tuesdays it is profoundly important.
thank you nagarjuna for the encouragement you have given many.
love, flakey xxx.
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===
Full text of "Nagarjuna The Fundamental Wisdom Of The Middle Way"
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Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika
"So
TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY RY JAY L. GARFIELD
w
The
Fundamental
Wisdom
of the
Middle
Way
Nagarjuna’s
Mulamadhyamakakdrika
TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY BY
JAY L. GARFIELD
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1995
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok
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Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1995 by Jay L. Garfield
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nagarjuna, 2nd cent.
[Madhyamakakarika. English & Sanskrit]
The fundamental wisdom of the middle way :
Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika /
Translation and commentary by
Jay L. Garfield,
p. cm.
ISBN 0-19-509336-4 (pbk.);
ISBN 0-19-510317-3 (cloth)
1. Madhyamika (Buddhism) — Early works to 1800.
I. Garfield, Jay L., 1955—.
BQ2792.E5G37 1995 294.3'85— dc20 95-1051
9
Printed in the United States of America
I dedicate this work,
with profound gratitude
and respect,
to the Most Ven. Professor Samdhong Rinpoche:
scholar, educator, statesman, public servant
and shining exemplar of monastic life.
Preface
This is a translation of the Tibetan text of Mulamadhyamakaka-
rika. It is perhaps an odd idea to translate a Tibetan translation of
a Sanskrit text and to retranslate a text of which there are four
extant English versions. My reasons for doing so are these: First, I
am not satisfied with any of the other English versions. Every
translation, this one included, of any text embodies an interpreta-
tion, and my interpretation differs in various respects from those of
my predecessors in this endeavor. This is to be expected. As Tuck
(1990) has correctly observed, Nagarjuna, like any philosopher
from a distant cultural context, is always read against an interpre-
tive backdrop provided by the philosophical presuppositions of the
interpreter, and by previous readings of Nagarjuna. So I claim no
special privileged position vis a vis Streng (1967), Inada (1970),
Sprung (1979), or Kalupahana (1986)— only a different position,
one that I hope will prove useful in bringing Mulamadhyama-
kakarika into contemporary philosophical discourse. I, like any
translator/interpreter must acknowledge that there is simply no
fact of the matter about the correct rendering of any important and
genuinely interesting text. Interpretations, and with them, transla-
tions, will continue to evolve as our understanding of the text
evolves and as our interpretive horizon changes. Matters are even
more complex and indeterminate when the translation crosses cen-
turies, traditions and languages, and sets of philosophical assump-
tions that are quite distant from one another, as is the case in the
present project. So each of the available versions of the text em-
bodies a reading. Inada reads Nagarjuna from the standpoint of
Preface
viii
the Zen tradition, and his translation reflects that reading; Kalu-
pahana reads Nagarjuna as a Theravada commentator on the
Kaccayanagotta-sutra , and his translation reflects that reading, as
well as his view about the affinities between James’s pragmatism
and Theravada Buddhism. Sprung adopts Murti’s Kantian interpre-
tation of Madhyamika, and his translation reflects that interpreta-
tion. Streng reads the text as primarily concerned with religious
phenomenology. There is no translation of this text into English,
and no commentary on it, that specifically reflects an Indo-Tibetan
Prasangika-Madhyamika interpretation. Inasmuch as this is my
own preferred way to read Nagarjuna, and the reading dominant
in Tibetan and highly influential in Japanese and Chinese discus-
sions of Mulamadhyamakakarikd , I believe that it is important to
fill this lacuna in the English bibliography.
Having argued that all translation involves some interpretation
and, hence, that there is always some distance between an original
text and a translation, however good and canonical that translation
may be, it follows that Mulamadhyamakakarikd and dBu-ma rtsa-
ba shes-rab differ, however close they may be and however canoni-
cally the latter is treated. Since dBu-ma rtsa-ba shes-rab is the text
read by and commented on by generations of Tibetan philoso-
phers, I think that it is important that an English translation of this
very text be available to the Western philosophical public. This
text is hence worthy in its own right of translation inasmuch as it is
the proper subject of the Tibetan philosophical literature I and
others find so deep and fascinating.
This is not a critical scholarly edition of the text. It is not philo-
logical in intent; nor is it a discussion of the commentarial litera-
ture on Nagarj una’s text. There is indeed a need for such a book,
but that need will have to be filled by someone else. This is rather
meant to be a presentation of a philosophical text to philosophers,
and not an edition of the text for Buddhologists. If philosophers
and students who read my book thereby gain an entrance into
Nagarj una’s philosophy and see Mulamadhyamakakarikd , as inter-
preted herein, as a text worthy of study and discussion, this work
will have served its purpose. Since my intended audience is not
Buddhologists, per se, but Western philosophers who are inter-
ested in Buddhist philosophy, I have tried to balance standard
Preface
IX
renderings of Buddhist terminology with more perspicuous contem-
porary philosophical language. I am not sure that I have always
made the right decisions or that I have found the middle path
between the extremes of Buddhological orthodoxy and Western
revisionism. But that is the aim.
I am also striving for that elusive middle path between two other
extremes in translation: I am trying on the one hand to avoid the
unreadable literalism of translations that strive to provide a verba-
tim report of the words used the original, regardless of whether
that results in a comprehensible English text. But there is on the
other hand the extreme represented by a translation written in
lucid English prose purporting to be what the original author
would have written had he been a twentieth-century philosopher
writing in English, or one that, in an attempt to convey what the
text really means on some particular interpretation, is in fact not a
translation of the original text, but a completely new book, bearing
only a distant relation to the original. This hopelessly mixes the
tasks of translation on the one hand and critical commentary on
the other. Of course, as I have noted above, these tasks are inter-
twined. But there is the fault of allowing the translation to become
so mixed with the commentary that one no longer has a grip on, for
example, what is Nagarjuna and what is Garfield. After all, al-
though the text is interpreted in being translated, this text should
still come out in translation as a text which could be interpreted in
the ways that others have read it. Because the original does indeed
justify competing interpretations. That is one of the things that
makes it such an important philosophical work.
Amherst , Mass.
November 1994
J. L. G.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are already due to many who have helped at different
stages of this project: Thanks to Bob Thurman and David Sloss for
first introducing me to Buddhist philosophy and then for encourag-
ing me to wade deeper. Thanks to David Kalupahana, Steve Odin,
Kenneth Inada, and Guy Newland, as well as to David Karnos,
Joel Aubel, Dick Garner, and William Herbrechtsmeier for many
hours of valuable and enjoyable discussion of this text at the Na-
tional Endowment for the Humanities Summer institute on Nagar-
juna in Hawaii. And thanks to the NEH for the grant support that
enabled my participation in that institute. I am especially grateful
to Guy Newland for many subsequent conversations, useful sugges-
tions, encouragement, and a critical reading of my work. Thanks
to Janet Gyatso for countless hours of profitable and enjoyable
philosophical conversation and for many useful and detailed criti-
cisms and suggestions on this and other related work. Thanks to
the Ven. Geshe Lobzang Tsetan for starting me in Tibetan, for
much useful philosophical interchange, for teaching me an im-
mense amount about Madhyamika, and for his close criticism of
this text; to Georges Dreyfus (Geshe Sengye Samdup) for much
useful advice and discussion; and to Joshua and Dianne Cutler and
the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center of North America for hospi-
tality. I also thank John Dunne for detailed comments on several
chapters of an earlier draft of this translation.
I am grateful to the Indo- American Foundation, the Council for
the International Exchange of Scholars, and the Smithsonian Insti-
tution for an Indo- American Fellowship in 1990-91. During that
xii
Acknowledgments
time, as a Visiting Senior Research Scholar at the Central Institute
of Higher Tibetan Studies, I began work on this project. I owe an
enormous debt of gratitude to The Most Ven. Prof. Samdhong
Rinpoche and his staff for hosting me and my family at the Central
Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies and to Rinpoche himself for his
generous personal help. I thank the Ven. Geshe Ngawang Sherab
for all of his kind logistical help at Santarakshita Library and for
friendship and philosophical interchange. Thanks also to the Ven.
Lobzang Norbu Shastri and the Ven. Acarya Ngawang Samten for
extensive conversations from which I learned much and for useful
comments on this work and to Karma for Tibetan lessons.
I am deeply grateful to the Ven. Prof. Geshe Yeshes Thap-Khas
for reading dBu-ma rtsa-ba shes-rab and related texts with me and
for giving me his invaluable oral commentary on these texts during
that year and on many subsequent occasions. Nobody has taught me
more about Madhyamika philosophy, and it is hard to imagine a
more patient, generous, and incisive scholar and teacher. Without
his lucid teachings, and without Geshe-la’s enormous patience, I
could never have approached this text with any degree of success.
While he would not agree with everything I say, my own reading of
this text is enormously influenced by his. Special thanks to Sri Yeshi
Tashi Shastri for his translation and transcription assistance during
many of these sessions and for an enormous amount of cheerful and
generous general research assistance, including a great deal of care-
ful proofreading and detailed comments on this translation.
During that year and in subsequent years I also benefited greatly
from my visits to the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics. I am deeply
grateful to the Ven. Prof. Geshe Lobzang Gyatso for his hospitality
and for his teaching. In our many conversations and from his writ-
ings I have learned a great deal, and this project certainly reflects
his influence. Without his patient advice on interpretative and
expository details and without his vigorous critique of many of my
ideas it would have been impossible to produce this commentary. I
thank the Ven. Sherab Gyatso for his tireless and invaluable trans-
lation and assistance during that time. The Ven. Sherab Gyasto,
The Ven. Graham Woodhouse, the Ven. Tenzin Dechen, and the
Ven. Huen have given much to me in many hours of philosophical
interchange through translation help and through their hospitality
Acknowledgments
xiii
and friendship. Mr. Phillipe Goldin has also offered many helpful
suggestions on the translation and commentary. I also thank the
Ven. Khamtrul Rinpoche, the Ven. Geshe Yeshe Topden (Gen
Drup-Thop) and Gen Lam-Rim-pa for their teachings and Acarya
Nyima Tshering for his introduction and translation on those occa-
sions. Special thanks to Nyima Penthog for improving my Tibetan.
I thank His Holiness the Dalai Lama for his encouragement and
for valuable discussion of some difficult interpretative issues.
I am also very grateful to friends and colleagues at Drepung
Loseling Monastic College. My visit there was extremely enjoyable
and also philosophically fruitful. Thanks to the Ven. Geshe Dak-pa
Toepgyal and the Ven. Thupten Dorjee for arranging everything
and for talking with me about this and other work. I am very
grateful to the Ven. Geshe Namgyal Wangchen for detailed com-
ments and encouragement on this work and for useful discussions
about Madhyamika, translation, the task of presenting Buddhist
philosophical texts to the West, and other topics.
My acknowledgment of help in India would not be complete
without acknowledging the gracious hospitality and assistance in
living of Sri N. N. Rai, Sri Arun Kumar Rai, Sri A. R. Singh, and
their families in Sarnath; the hospitality of Kunzom Topden
Martam and his family in Sikkim — it was the Martam house in
which the writing actually got started; and Dr. L. S. Suri of the
American Institute of Indian Studies in New Delhi, whose adminis-
trative efficiency kept everything moving smoothly.
I am deeply grateful to four friends who read a complete draft of
this work and provided honest, searching, sometimes scathing criti-
cism. What more could one ask from colleagues and friends? Many
of their suggestions are incorporated in the book as it now stands,
and much of whatever is good in it is due to their enormous contribu-
tions. Sometimes I have disagreed with each of them. And whatever
errors remain are certainly my own. So thanks especially to the Ven.
Gareth Sparham, the Ven. Sherab Gyatso, Guy Newland, and Jane
Braaten for copious corrections and criticism and for extensive pro-
ductive discussion. Thanks also to Prof. Alan Sponberg for useful
comments on an earlier draft and to Janet Gyatso, Graham Parkes,
and Georges Dreyfus for reading and commenting on the penulti-
mate draft.
xiv
Acknowledgments
Another group of colleagues to whom I owe thanks are those
who kept faith. This may require some explanation. I discovered
when I — a Western, analytically trained philosopher of mind —
began to work on Buddhist philosophy that many in philosophy
and cognitive science took this as evidence of some kind of insan-
ity, or at least as an abandonment of philosophy, per se. This is not
the place to speculate on the origins or nature of the stigma attach-
ing in some parts of our profession to Asian philosophy. But it is a
sad fact to be noted and to be rectified. In any case, I therefore
owe special thanks to those who went out of their way to support
this work and to let me know that they took it and me seriously. I
thank especially my friend and colleague Meredith Michaels for
constant support, advice, and encouragement. And I thank Mur-
ray Kiteley, John Connolly, Nalini Bhushan, Kathryn Addelson,
Elizabeth Spellman, Frederique Marglin, Lee Bowie, Tom Warten-
burg, Vere Chappell, Gareth Matthews, and John Robison, as well
as Dan Lloyd, Steve Horst, and Joe Rouse. Thanks under this
head also go to many of my nonphilosopher colleagues in the
Hampshire College Cultural Studies program. I single out Mary
Russo, Joan Landes, Susan Douglas, Jeffery Wallen, Norman Hol-
land, and L. Brown Kennedy.
I also gratefully acknowledge the support of several Hewlett-
Mellon faculty development grants from Hampshire College and
thank the deans of the college for supporting this work so gener-
ously. I am also grateful for the support of this project and of
related projects involving academic exchange between the Ameri-
can and Tibetan academic communities from President Greg
Prince of Hampshire College. Thanks also to Ms. Ruth Hammen
and Ms. Leni Bowen for regular logistical support, to Mr. Andrew
Janiak for his extensive assistance and editorial suggestions in the
final stages of manuscript preparation, and to Mr. Shua Garfield
and Mr. Jeremy Mage for additional assistance in manuscript prepa-
ration and proofreading. Thanks as well to many groups of stu-
dents in “Convention, Knowledge and Existence: European and
Indo-Tibetan Perspectives” for putting up with and helping me to
refine my presentation of this text and for my students in Buddhist
Philosophy at Mount Holyoke College for working through an
earlier draft of this text.
Acknowledgments
xv
Portions of the translations of and commentaries on Chapters I,
II, XIII, and XXIV appeared in Philosophy East and West in Gar-
field (1990) and (1994). I thank the editors for permission to use
that material here. The Tibetan edition of the text is from dGe
’dun grub, dBu ma rtsa shes rtsa y grel bzhugs (Commentary on
Mulamadhyamakakarika ), Ge Lugs Pa Students’ Welfare Publish-
ing, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, 1987.
I am more grateful than I could ever express to my family for
accompanying me to India for one year, for enduring my absence
when I have been in India alone, and for enduring my preoccupa-
tion with this and related philosophical projects. I am especially
grateful to Blaine Garson, who has shouldered far more than her
fair share of parenting and other household responsibilities. Every
stage of this project is dependent upon her help, sacrifice, and
support.
I hope that I haven’t forgotten anybody.
Part One
The Text of Mulamadhyamakakarikd
Dedicatory Verses, 2
I Examination of Conditions, 3
II Examination of Motion, 6
III Examination of the Senses, 10
IV Examination of the Aggregates, 12
V Examination of Elements, 14
VI Examination of Desire and the Desirous, 16
VII Examination of the Conditioned, 18
VIII Examination of the Agent and Action, 23
IX Examination of the Prior Entity, 26
X Examination of Fire and Fuel, 28
XI Examination of the Initial and Final Limits, 31
XII Examination of Suffering, 33
XIII Examination of Compounded Phenomena, 35
XIV Examination of Connection, 37
XV Examination of Essence, 39
XVI Examination of Bondage, 41
xviii
Contents
XVII Examination of Actions and Their Fruits, 43
XVIII Examination of Self and Entities, 48
XIX Examination of Time, 50
XX Examination of Combination, 52
XXI Examination of Becoming and Destruction, 56
XXII Examination of the Tathagata, 60
XXIII Examination of Errors, 63
XXIV Examination of the Four Noble Truths, 67
XXV Examination of Nirvana, 73
XXVI Examination of The Twelve Links, 77
XXVII Examination of Views, 79
Part Two
The Text and Commentary
Introduction to the Commentary, 87
Dedicatory Verses, 100
I Examination of Conditions, 103
II Examination of Motion, 124
III Examination of the Senses, 136
IV Examination of the Aggregates, 142
V Examination of Elements, 149
VI Examination of Desire and the Desirous, 153
VII Examination of the Conditioned, 159
VIII Examination of the Agent and Action, 178
IX Examination of the Prior Entity, 183
X Examination of Fire and Fuel, 189
XI Examination of the Initial and Final Limits, 196
Contents
xix
XII Examination of Suffering, 202
XIII Examination of Compounded Phenomena, 207
XIV Examination of Connection, 216
XV Examination of Essence, 220
XVI Examination of Bondage, 225
XVII Examination of Actions and Their Fruits, 231
XVIII Examination of Self and Entities, 245
XIX Examination of Time, 254
XX Examination of Combination, 258
XXI Examination of Becoming and Destruction, 267
XXII Examination of the Tathagata, 275
XXIII Examination of Errors, 284
XXIV Examination of the Four Noble Truths, 293
XXV Examination of Nirvana, 322
XXVI Examination of The Tvelve Links, 335
XXVII Examination of Views, 342
References, 361
Index, 367
