Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

A second-century Buddhist philosophical text by Nāgārjuna that uses analysis of dependent origination to argue that phenomena lack intrinsic existence.

Nāgārjuna: An Indian Buddhist philosopher traditionally dated to the second century CE and associated with the Madhyamaka school. He composed the verses that establish the text’s central arguments.
Prasaṅga: A method of reasoning that derives unacceptable consequences from an opponent’s assumptions. Many arguments in the text expose contradictions by following proposed claims to their consequences.
Buddhism in India: The development of Buddhist communities, teachings, and institutions on the Indian subcontinent. The text emerged within the Indian Buddhist intellectual world.
Abhidharma: A body of Buddhist scholastic analysis that classifies mental and physical phenomena into basic factors. Nāgārjuna’s arguments challenge claims that analyzed factors exist ultimately in their own right.
Tibetan Buddhist philosophy: The philosophical traditions developed within Tibetan Buddhism through study, debate, and commentary. The text became a central subject of Tibetan scholastic study and debate.
Madhyamaka: A Buddhist philosophical tradition that analyzes phenomena as empty of intrinsic nature. The text is the foundational work of this philosophical tradition.
Catuṣkoṭi: A fourfold logical scheme examining whether a claim, its negation, both, or neither holds. The text applies fourfold analysis to questions such as whether things arise.
Kumārajīva: A Buddhist monk and translator whose Chinese translation of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā dates to the fifth century. His translation became a major route through which the text shaped East Asian Buddhism.
Sarvāstivāda: An early Buddhist school whose doctrine held that dharmas exist across past, present, and future. Its account of dharmas provides a target for the text’s critique of intrinsic existence.
Prāsaṅgika: A Madhyamaka interpretive tradition that emphasizes consequence-based critique rather than establishing autonomous theses. Later Tibetan schools treated this approach as a key interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s method.

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Sanskrit Buddhist literatureBroader topic: This Sanskrit philosophical work shaped Buddhist debates across Asia.