The problem of the historical Nagarjuna revisited.

• Author: Mabbett, Ian

Claims about the life of Nagarjuna are often asserted as if the facts were known and secure, when they are not. Those who explore the evidence in quest of more secure facts come up with contradictory conclusions.

Even the century or centuries in which Nagarjuna lived cannot be confidently identified. Scholarly references to Nagarjuna frequently take it as given that he lived in the second century, sometimes specifying the latter half of it.(2) On the basis of the archaeological evidence reported by K. R. Subramanian, whose 1932 publication is cited above, Venkata Ramanan drew the conclusion that Nagarjuna flourished within the period A.D. 50-120.(3) A recent account of Buddhist philosophy, by D. Kalupahana, similarly takes Subramanian as an authority, yet (citing Nakamura) assigns Nagarjuna to A.D. 150-250.(4) Shohei Ichimura claims that Nagarjuna lived from about A.D. 50 to about 150.(5) He says: "The earliest dates ever postulated for the times of Nagarjuna were proposed by Prof. H. Ui as A.D. 113 and 213"(6) but as we have seen this is wrong.

Substantially later dates also find their protagonists. For example. E. Lamotte was influenced by Chinese evidence, interpreted by him to entail that Nagarjuna's dates were A.D. 243-c. 300.(7) Prima facie, Chinese sources appear more useful than Indian ones (although as we shall see the results for the biography of Nagarjuna are disappointing), and this chronology, supported also by J. May,(8) should not be ignored.

Chronologies proposed vary freely between the first and third centuries.(9) One scholar, indeed, has claimed that "we do not think it an impossibility or absurdity to assign to him an age of about two hundred years," and assigns Nagarjuna's life to a period from the early first century B.C. to the early second A.D.(10)

Nagarjuna's career has been variously located in widely different parts of India, often in the south (the late Satavahana stronghold along the Krishna, or further north in "Daksinakosala"), but sometimes in the west, the northwest, or the northeast. Again, for some, there is only one Nagarjuna, while for others there are two, three, or four.(11)

There is no need, however, to engage in any extended survey of the modern scholarship. It is clear that what has proved "baffling to the most brainy" is the quest for knowledge about Nagarjuna's life. Is the present state of confusion caused by any defect in scholarly method or rigor, or is it caused by the sheer inadequacy of the evidence to support any one convincing interpretation?

This question needs to be confronted squarely. If (as I believe) the second answer is the correct one, a demonstration of the limits of the evidence can serve a valuable purpose. The common habit of assigning Nagarjuna to the second century is not properly justified; it is a self-validating majority vote, or a median possibility, rather than a demonstrable probability. I am inclined to believe that Nagarjuna may have lived later, but this cannot be proved; the purpose of the following survey is chiefly to show that claims commonly made are not well founded.

This is not, of course, the only sort of purpose that might be served by a study of the sources bearing on Nagarjuna's life. An important set of questions, not addressed here, concerns the role of hagiography in religious history, a topic that has been attracting increasing attention. The treatment of Nagarjuna as a supernatural figure is itself a phenomenon to be investigated.(12) However, my interest is not in those sources which present the fantastic but in those most likely to furnish historical evidence.

In what follows, a positive methodological contribution is also intended. It concerns our treatment of the many later works, mostly more or less tantric, which are traditionally credited to "Nagarjuna" but are unlikely to be by the original madhyamika philosopher. The later works in question were written by real people, but it is perhaps an error to suppose that they must all be attributable to some unique individual (or even two or three distinguishable individuals) who happened, confusingly, to have also the name Nagarjuna. Instead of a very small number of authentic Nagarjunas, perhaps we should seek rather a large number of people who played parts in the transmission of a legend. This point will be amplified below.

Finally, the present study is also informed by a survey of the results of archaeological research in the sites along the Krishna, a category of evidence which needs to be more closely integrated into the study of Nagarjuna's life than hitherto.

For the purpose of this discussion, unless otherwise specified, the name Nagarjuna shall designate the author, whoever he may be, of the Mulamadhyamakakarikas and of whatever other works can be agreed to come from the same writer. The interest here is in the philosopher of Madhyamaka; works of other sorts (tantric or proto-scientific) will be noticed only insofar as they have been held by some writers to share authorship with the Nagarjuna here identified. Where it is necessary to speak of more than one individual possibly bearing the same name, they can be distinguished as Nagarjuna I (the madhyamika), Nagarjuna II, and so forth.

Various sorts of evidence will here be given short shrift, on the assumption that there is little to be gained from them. Chronologies based on traditional lineages of teachers in Chinese or Tibetan do not appear promising avenues of enquiry. Tibetan sources in general seem too far removed from the age of Nagarjuna to furnish significant independent evidence. The study of the internal evidence of some philosophical literature (Nyaya, for example), is of a different order, and may raise more questions than it answers; here it is left on one side.(13)

A table of all the works traditionally accredited to Nagarjuna would need to include a very large number of texts extant in Tibetan and Chinese, as well as those in Sanskrit, but many of these are not taken seriously and need not concern us. There is no space here for a review of the case for including or excluding particular works in a bibliography of Nagarjuna; we can only note that the attributions of modern scholars all differ, as can be seen from a comparison of the conclusions of a number of writers: Winternitz,(14) Robinson,(15) T. R.V. Murti,(16) D. Seyfort Ruegg,(17) C. Lindtner,(18) and P. L. Vaidya.(19)

There is perhaps only a small core of the philosophical texts that clearly belong with the Mulamadhyamakakarikas as the work of one author. Of the works credited to Nagarjuna in the Tibetan tradition, six (the Mulamadhyamakakarikah, Sunyatasaptati, Vigrahavyavartani, Vaidalyaprakarana, Vyavaharasiddhi and Yuktisastika) are listed together as works of Nagarjuna by Buston (thirteenth to fourteenth centuries); these are specifically philosophical works. Elsewhere, as has sometimes been overlooked, he mentions others - the Ratnavali, Sutrasamuccaya, Bodhisambhara[ka], Suhrllekha, and the Svapnacintamaniparikatha.(20) The credentials of the Sunyatasaptati, the Vigrahavydvartani and the Yuktisastika are rarely disputed. It is difficult to study the Vigrahavyavartani, for example, without recognizing the essential identity of thought behind it and the Karikas. The Catuhstava, also commonly attributed to Nagarjuna I, is a special case which will be noticed further below; it is a set of four devotional hymns, thus quite different in genre from the others mentioned, and there is doubt about which particular four hymns constitute it. Also significant is the attribution of the Sutrasamuccaya to Nagarjuna by Santideva in his Bodhicaryavatara,(21) which constitutes a relatively early attribution of one core text.

Some of the works traditionally attributed to Nagarjuna (and accepted as his works by C. Lindtner(22)), such as the Bodhicittavivarana and the Vaidalyaprakarana, have had their authenticity seriously questioned.(23) The attribution to Nagarjuna of the Suhrllekha, a manual largely of ethical teachings in the form of a letter to a friend, a king, has been contested.(24) As for the Ratnavali, T. Vetter's analysis of its metrical characteristics and word frequency casts doubt upon it too.(25)

Among the miscellaneous works of chemistry and medicine traditionally ascribed to Nagarjuna, it should be noted that the Yogasataka, a medical text, has been accepted by Filliozat,(26) but the attribution is arguably implausible.(27)

The Mahaprajnaparamitopadesa has long been treated as an authentic work of Nagarjuna, but in fact is unlikely to be by him despite the weight of tradition; Lamotte originally accepted the tradition but changed his mind before he edited the third volume of his study and translation.(28)

The only conclusion that can be advanced here is that relatively few works can be treated with any confidence as authentic creations of the master. These few are written in an abstract, anonymous style. Thus, when we turn to internal evidence for biographical information, there are no very firm conclusions to be drawn, chiefly because the best-attested works are the least chatty.

The best sort of source for biographical materials must be sought in other works which refer to Nagarjuna. Let us first consider originally Indian sources (some of which are no longer extant in Sanskrit).

The Lankavatara, known in Chinese and Tibetan translations, dates from as early as the fifth century. Chapter X was added to it, presumably between 443 and 513 A.D., the dates of the translations of Gunabhadra and Bodhiruci, respectively.(29) It contains an apocryphal prophecy of the Buddha, saying:

daksinapatha-vedalyam bhiksuh sriman mahayasaskah nagahvayah sa namna tu sadasatpaksadarakah 165(30)

In Vedali [Vidarbha?], in the southern region, there will be an illustrious monk of great renown bearing, indeed, the appellation Naga (or by name Nagahvaya [?]); he will destroy the views of existence and non-existence.(31)

The following verse...