Nāgārjuna's Philosophy of Śūnyatā and His Dialectic PDF Download

Author: Shōhei Ichimura
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mahayana Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Author: Mathew Varghese
Publisher: Sanctum Books
ISBN: 8190995014
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1037

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Nagarjuna is one of the finest philosophers who ever lived. This second century Buddhist philosopher from south India is known for his criticism on speculative theories and viewpoints. But his name is better known for introducing the idea of emptiness (sunyata), a philosophical concept that had hugely influenced the discourses of Eastern philosophy, religion, and culture for about 2000 years. Nagarjuna cleverly introduced emptiness (sunyata), into Buddhist discourses to explain its central philosophy: the philosophy of Middle Path. Through the negative mode of argumentation, he taught how we naturally get trapped into extreme viewpoints and speculate on them. His philosophy of Middle Path (Madhyamika) explains the progress of human reasoning moving in its natural course avoiding extreme viewpoints for finding harmony and freedom. During the second century, in a different milieu, Nagarjuna warned his students about the dangers of speculative thought created out of extreme viewpoints and philosophical doctrines. He taught them to look into the structures of such doctrines critically by using negation to know what the truth is. Therefore, the philosophical idea of emptiness (sunyata) is not the end of negation assuming perfect nihilism, but teaching us that it would work like medicine for removing all our ignorance. More precisely, it is like zero (sunya) in mathematics, a number with an undefined value, but real numbers find newer values by associating with it. It is a philosophical tool that helps us control our alleged fears, anger, petty hatred, etc., by invoking the natural course of human compassion (karuna) for us to live and die naturally. Therefore, the structure of emptiness is the philosophy of Middle Path.

Author: Ramendranath Ghose
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhist logic
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Author: Nāgārjuna
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120802155
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Lost in India, this text was fortunately discovered by Rahula Sankrtyayana in a Tibetan monastery.

Author: Lindtner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788120803954
Category : Mādhyamika (Buddhism)
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Author: Nagarjuna
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019997859X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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The Buddhist saint N=ag=arjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mah=ay=ana Buddhist philosopher. His many works include texts addressed to lay audiences, letters of advice to kings, and a set of penetrating metaphysical and epistemological treatises. His greatest philosophical work, the Mūlamadhyamikak=arik=a--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 and eminently readable translation of N=ag=arjuna's seminal work, offering those with little or no prior knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the Mūlamadhyamikak=arik=a. Garfield presents a superb translation of the Tibetan text of Mūlamadhyamikak=arik=a in its entirety, and a commentary reflecting the Tibetan tradition through which N=ag=arjuna's philosophical influence has largely been transmitted. Illuminating the systematic character of N=ag=arjuna's reasoning, Garfield shows how N=ag=arjuna develops his doctrine that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, that is, than nothing exists substantially or independently. Despite lacking any essence, he argues, phenomena nonetheless exist conventionally, and that indeed conventional existence and ultimate emptiness are in fact the same thing. This represents the radical understanding of the Buddhist doctrine of the two truths, or two levels of reality. He offers a verse-by-verse commentary that explains N=ag=arjuna's positions and arguments in the language of Western metaphysics and epistemology, and connects N=ag=arjuna's concerns to those of Western philosophers such as Sextus, Hume, and Wittgenstein. An accessible translation of the foundational text for all Mah=ay=ana Buddhism, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way offers insight to all those interested in the nature of reality.

Author: K. Venkata Ramanan
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
ISBN: 8120801598
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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This work is an exposition of the philosophic conceptions basic to Mahayana Buddhism as found in the Maha-prajnaparamita-sastra a commentary on the Prajnaparamita-sutras and traditionally attributed to Nagarjuna. The sastra the earliest and most extensive work in this field is lost in its Sanskrit original and preserved only in a Chinese translation. Meaning of Sanskrit and Chinese terms are expounded concepts are made clear and supplementary materials are supplied in the notes. The study is prefixed with a short historical account of the broad lines of Buddhist philosophy in its early stage. The aim of this work is to elucidate the meaning of the Middle Way, the way of comprehension. 'Everything stands in harmony with him who stands in harmony with Sunyata, which is not a rejection of existence or of understanding but of the misconstruction of the sense of the real or the error of misplaced absoluteness which is the origin of clinging and the root of conflict and suffering.'

Author: Jonardon Ganeri
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134551630
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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This original work focuses on the rational principles of Indian philosophical theory, rather than the mysticism more usually associated with it. Ganeri explores the philosophical projects of a number of major Indian philosophers and looks into the methods of rational inquiry deployed within these projects. In so doing, he illuminates a network of mutual reference, criticism, influence and response, in which reason is used to call itself into question. This fresh perspective on classical Indian thought unravels new philosophical paradigms, and points towards new applications for the concept of reason.

Author: Mathew Varghese
Publisher: Sanctum Books
ISBN: 8190995057
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Reading the philosophy of Nagarjuna in retrospective, his method of Nagarjuna is variously explained in this book. How the application of tetralemma-four-value structure (catuskoti) would give us enough resources to expand our thoughts and how that could help us negate the binary either/or structure of thought that demands theoretical postulations. Notably, the art of logical negation used by Nagarjuna employing neither/nor structure would help us understand the Middle Path (Madhyamika) philosophy clearly. Most of the philosophies use the structure of two-value logical interpretations to introduce their metaphysics and ethics. Metaphysical conception of soul-God is the basis of virtue ethics centred on transcendentals of goodness, truth, beauty, unity, justice, being, etc. of the classical Greeks, later being followed by Christians, Jews and Islamic thinkers. The conception of atman-Brahman is the foundation of Vedic philosophers' understanding of transcendentals as truth (sat), consciousness (cit) and bliss (ananada), Nagarjuna, on the other hand, employs negative dialectics to confute the logical structure of either/or that demands metaphysical concepts; and by employing the four-value logical structure, he introduces the transcendentals as wisdom and compassion. This book uses Nagarjunian art of negation to reread his philosophy differently to discern the concept of emptiness (sunyata) as the co-dependent evolution of various elements of the subjective self and the elements of objective experiences in the dominion of the subjective self and the elements of objective experiences in the dominion of the subjective self; therein it is possible to redefine no-soul (nairatmya) as self-being, and "dominion of subjectivity" for replacing a metaphysical postulation; and the transcendentals as wisdom and compassion.

Author: Shōhei Ichimura
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN: 9788120817982
Category : Buddhist philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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This book comprises fifteen research articles primarily based on the discipline of Indian and Buddhist Studies. The collection is designed to propose a Buddhist philosophy of religion--that the insight of Prajna and Sunyata initiates a future religion which is freed both from conflict between reasoning and believing, and from goal-oriented cycles of life. It addresses transformation from the conflict-ridden quest for a supreme being, to the search for a non-theistic nature of spirituality that provides a foundation for universal human happiness and salvation. For the discipline of Buddhist Studies, this collection also demonstrates the productive value of drawing upon cross-cultural and cross-racial literary sources and traditions.