Nagarjuna Quotes on Truth
Nagarjuna (c.150–c.250) — the founding figure of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy and the principal philosophical interpreter of the Prajnaparamita sutras — gave classical Indian philosophy its most influential treatment of the doctrine of two truths. The central thesis of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and the Vigrahavyāvartanī is that all phenomena are empty (śūnya) of intrinsic existence — they exist only through the dependent origination through which they arise, and any attempt to attribute self-existence to them generates the dialectical contradictions Nagarjuna systematically draws out — with the corresponding distinction between conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya), in which ordinary speech and practice are validly conducted, and ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya), the emptiness that the dialectical analysis discloses. The framework shaped the entire subsequent Mahayana philosophical tradition through Bhāvaviveka, Candrakīrti, the Tibetan Madhyamaka schools, and the East Asian Sanlun and Tiantai traditions.
Quotes
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Attributed to Nagarjuna:
“Nothing whatsoever has ever existed in itself.”
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Attributed to Nagarjuna:
“Whatever is dependently co-arisen, that is explained to be emptiness.”
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Attributed to Nagarjuna:
“Samsara is nothing essentially different from nirvana; nirvana is nothing essentially different from samsara.”
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Attributed to Nagarjuna:
“Without dependence on conventional truth, the meaning of the ultimate cannot be taught.”
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Attributed to Nagarjuna:
“If I had any thesis, that fault would apply to me; but I have no thesis at all.”
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Attributed to Nagarjuna:
“Emptiness wrongly grasped is like seizing a snake by the wrong end.”