Untertitel:: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika
Verlag:: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Erschienen:: 09.11.1995
Seitenanzahl:: 400
EAN:: 9780199766321
Sprache:: Englisch
Format:: EPUB
Schutz:: Adobe-DRM
Downloadzeit:: Maximale Downloadanzahl: 3

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Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjunas Mulamadhyamakakarika

Nagarjuna

The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahayana 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 Mulamadhyamikakarika--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 Nagarjunas seminal work, offering those with little or no prior knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the Mulamadhyamikakarika. Garfield presents a superb translation of the Tibetan text of Mulamadhyamikakarika in its entirety, and a commentary reflecting the Tibetan tradition through which Nagarjunas philosophical influence has largely been transmitted. Illuminating the systematic character of Nagarjunas reasoning, Garfield shows how Nagarjuna 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 Nagarjunas positions and arguments in the language of Western metaphysics and epistemology, and connects Nagarjunas concerns to those of Western philosophers such as Sextus, Hume, and Wittgenstein. An accessible translation of the foundational text for all Mahayana Buddhism, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way offers insight to all those interested in the nature of reality.