The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second 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 Mulamadhyamakakarika - 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 Nagarjuna's seminal work, offering those with little or no prior knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the Mulamadhyamakakarika . He offers an illuminating verse-by-verse commentary that explains Nagarjuna's position and arguments in the language of Western metaphysics and epistemology., and connects Nagarjuna's concerns to those of Western philosophers such as Sextus, Hume, and Wittgenstein. An accessible translation of the foundational text of all Mahayana Buddhism. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way will offer insight to all of those interested in the nature of reality.
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Nagarjuna, Translation and Commentary by J. L. Garfield, Oxford University Press, Paperback, 372 pages, $21.99
Jay L. Garfield is Professor of Philosophy at Smith College and Director of the Hampshire in India Program (an exchange program with the Tibetan universities in exile) at Hampshire College. He is the author of Belief in Psychology, Cognitive Science: An Introduction, and Western Idealism and Its Critics: A Textbook For Use in Tibetan Monastic Universities.
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