Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way

Historical and Textual Background

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (often abbreviated MMK) is the principal work of the Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna, generally dated to the 2nd–3rd century CE. Composed in classical Sanskrit verse, it is regarded as the foundational text of the Madhyamaka (“Middle Way”) school of Mahāyāna Buddhism.

The text originally circulated within Indian monastic and scholastic circles and survives today primarily through:

• partial Sanskrit manuscripts,
• a complete Tibetan translation in the Kangyur,
• and a Chinese translation by Kumārajīva (4th–5th century CE) titled Zhonglun (Treatise on the Middle).

The work is structured into 27 chapters of short, often cryptic, verses. It is traditionally read together with key commentaries, most notably Buddhapālita, Bhāviveka, and Candrakīrti, whose interpretive debates helped define later Madhyamaka sub-schools.

Central Themes and Structure

At the core of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā), understood as the absence of svabhāva, that is, the absence of any intrinsic, independent, or unchanging essence in phenomena. Nāgārjuna connects this to the Buddha’s teaching of dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda): because all things arise in dependence on causes, conditions, and conceptual imputation, they lack independent self-nature.

A second major theme is the distinction between the two truths:

• Conventional truth (saṁvṛti-satya): the way things appear and function in everyday practice and language.
• Ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya): the insight that phenomena are empty of intrinsic existence.

The text is not arranged as a linear argument with a single thesis but as a set of thematic investigations. Major chapters treat:

• Causation and conditions (Chs. 1, 7): rejecting both production from self, from other, from both, and from no cause.
• Motion, change, and time (Chs. 2, 19): analyzing mover/motion, past–present–future.
• The self and aggregates (Chs. 4, 9): questioning the substantiality of persons and mental-physical constituents.
• The four noble truths and nirvāṇa (Chs. 24–25): reconciling emptiness with core Buddhist soteriology.

Nāgārjuna repeatedly insists that emptiness is not a further metaphysical substance or reality, but rather a critical tool for undermining reified views. In this sense, the MMK presents emptiness as a therapeutic concept: properly understood, it dissolves clinging and conceptual extremism.

Philosophical Method and Arguments

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā employs a characteristically dialectical and often reductio-style method. Rather than presenting positive metaphysical claims, Nāgārjuna typically takes positions attributed to others and demonstrates that they lead to contradictions, regress, or incoherence.

One recurring argumentative pattern is the so‑called tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi), which examines four exhaustive alternatives:

1. A exists,
2. A does not exist,
3. A both exists and does not exist,
4. A neither exists nor does not exist.

In many chapters, Nāgārjuna argues that all four alternatives are untenable when applied to phenomena as intrinsically existing entities. Proponents interpret this not as a denial of ordinary existence but as a denial that existence and non-existence can be coherently predicated in an essentialist way.

Key philosophical moves include:

• Analysis of causation: Nāgārjuna scrutinizes theories that things arise from themselves, from something other, from both, or from no cause at all. He concludes that, once “production” is analyzed in terms of intrinsic existence, every option becomes paradoxical. This is taken to support a dependent, non-essentialist understanding of causation.

• Critique of part–whole and identity–difference: Several chapters examine chariots, aggregates, and other composites. Nāgārjuna disputes that wholes can be found apart from their parts or that parts have independent existence apart from the conceptual construction of a whole, undermining atomistic and substantialist ontologies.

• Self and personhood: The MMK extends earlier Buddhist analyses of non-self (anātman) by arguing that neither a permanent self nor a reducible bundle of aggregates can withstand critical scrutiny as a metaphysical subject. The “person” is maintained conventionally, without granting it intrinsic essence.

• Two-truths clarification: In a celebrated passage, Nāgārjuna claims that without relying on conventional truth, the ultimate cannot be taught, and without understanding the ultimate, liberation is impossible. He also warns that “emptiness wrongly grasped is like picking up a venomous snake”: misconstrued as nihilism, it undermines ethical practice and the path.

Modern interpreters differ on how to classify the MMK philosophically. Some characterize it as anti-metaphysical or even quietist, emphasizing its rejection of all positive ontological theses. Others read Nāgārjuna as advancing a reconstructive account of reality as dependently arisen processes, or as articulating a sophisticated form of conceptual relativism grounded in conventional practices. Scholars have also drawn parallels between Nāgārjuna’s arguments and Western traditions such as Pyrrhonian skepticism, logical analysis, and deconstructive approaches, while noting important doctrinal and methodological differences.

Reception and Influence

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā rapidly became the central text of Madhyamaka in India and later in Tibet and East Asia. In India, classical commentators such as Buddhapālita, Bhāviveka, and Candrakīrti debated how to understand Nāgārjuna’s method—whether he advanced arguments only through reductio (prasaṅga) or also through independent syllogisms. These debates contributed to the distinction between Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika forms of Madhyamaka in later Tibetan scholasticism.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the MMK is a foundational philosophical curriculum text for all major traditions (Geluk, Sakya, Kagyu, Nyingma). It informs Tibetan approaches to logic, meditation on emptiness, and debates on the nature of ultimate reality, including tensions between rangtong (“self-empty”) and shentong (“empty-of-other”) interpretations.

In East Asia, Nāgārjuna’s work, mediated especially through Kumārajīva’s translation, influenced Chinese schools such as Sanlun (“Three Treatise” school), which treated the MMK, the Śataśāstra, and the Dvādaśanikāya as core scriptures. Its influence also extended, more diffusely, into Tiantai, Huayan, and Zen/Chan traditions, particularly in their reflections on non-duality and the interdependence of phenomena.

In the modern period, the MMK has been the subject of extensive scholarly study and philosophical engagement. Translators and interpreters have debated how best to render key technical terms (such as svabhāva and śūnyatā) and how to assess Nāgārjuna’s logical procedures. Contemporary philosophers of language, metaphysics, and logic have explored comparisons between Nāgārjuna’s arguments and:

• skepticism about metaphysical grounding,
• critiques of essentialism and substance ontology,
• and contextual or deflationary treatments of truth and reference.

While there is no consensus on the precise systematic commitments of the text, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential and philosophically sophisticated works of the Buddhist tradition, continuing to shape both religious practice and cross-cultural philosophical dialogue.