The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā or Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, abbreviated as MMK, is a foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna philosophy, composed by Nāgārjuna in approximately the second-third century CE. A collection of 27 chapters in Sanskrit verse, it is widely regarded as the most influential text of Buddhist philosophy and has had a major impact on its subsequent development, especially northeast of India in Tibet and East Asia.
Origin
lived in India circa the second century CE, perhaps having been born in 150 CE. As with many early Indian historical figures, his biography is semi-mythical, and little is known of his real life. A philosopher of the Madhyamaka branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism, he believed all things to be Śūnyatā, or without of an intrinsic existence and nature, instead depending for their character on other things. Although all Buddhist schools hold that the self is empty, schools adhering to the Abhidharma doctrine still conceive of the dharmas as ultimately real entities. In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna sought to rebut anti-Madhyamaka arguments from Abhidharma and other rival Buddhist traditions, such as Sautrāntika and Pudgalavada, as well as Hindu schools such as Nyaya. Because of the high degree of similarity between the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and Pyrrhonism, particularly the surviving works of the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus, Thomas McEvilley suspects Nagarjuna was influenced by Greek Pyrrhonist texts imported into India. Moreover, since the Greek philosopherPyrrho of Elis is known to have visited India, Christopher I. Beckwith suspects that Pyrrho's formulation of the three marks of existence and the translation of the tetralemma into Greek was due to influences from Buddhist and Jain philosophers whom he is known to have met in his travels.
As a kārikā-style text, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā presents only aphoristic, often enigmatic and extremely shortened verses, much like the sūtra works of the various orthodox Hindu philosophical schools. Since they served primarily as pedagogical or mnemonic aids for teachers, commentaries were required to make the meaning of this type of text more explicit to the uninitiated reader. The Indian Akutobhayā, whose authorship is unknown, though is attributed to Nagarjuna in the tradition, is held by Ames to be the first commentary on the MMK. The earliest known commentary on the MMK by another author is preserved within the first Chinese translation of the Kārikā, known as the "Middle Treatise", translated by Kumarajiva in 409. The author of this commentary is given as either "Blue Eyes" or *Piṅgala. This is by far the best known commentary in East Asian Mādhyamaka, forming one of the three commentaries that make up the San Lun School. The best-known commentary in later Indian and Tibetan Buddhism is Candrakirti'sPrasannapadā, which survives in Sanskrit and Tibetan translation. Other surviving and influential Indian commentaries on the MMK include Buddhapālita's "Madhyamakvr̩tti" and Bhāviveka's "Prajñāpradīpa".
The authenticity of the last two chapters is disputed, and they may have been later additions, not composed by Nāgārjuna. However, most ancient commentaries take them to be canonical.
