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"Therefore in this world, rejoicing, I guide the faithful believer into the way of Purity." Now with all praise let us give thanks unto the merciful goodness of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Nagarjuna, the great teacher, setting forth in many excellent writings the praise of the Kingdom of Purity, hath instructed us to recite the Holy Name.
He was the twenty-eighth Successor of the Buddha; of a line of Masters that included such great names as those of Vasubandhu, and of Nagarjuna, founder of the Mahayana, "one of the four suns that illumine the world."
Nagarjuna, that great priest, setting forth the two ways the way that is straight and plain, and the way of high austerity, leadeth very gently to the Ark of the Divine Promise such as are driven through the weariness of births and deaths.
Since the early history of the Mahayana is a matter for argument rather than precise statement, it will perhaps be best to begin with some account of its doctrines and literature and proceed afterwards to chronology. I may, however, mention that general tradition connects it with King Kanishka and asserts that the great doctors Aśvaghosha and Nâgârjuna lived in and immediately after his reign.
This gives about 400 years for sixteen Patriarchs, which is possible, for these worthies were long-lived. Ind. Lit. II. i. p. 211. See B.E.F.E.O. 1911, p. 453. For Nâgârjuna see especially Grünwedel, Mythologie, pp. 29 ff. and the bibliography given in the notes. Jour. Budd. Text. Soc. V. part iv. pp. 7 ff. Watters, Yüan Chwang, pp. 200 ff. Târanâtha, chap. XV and Winternitz, Ges. Ind. Lit.
Three stages in the history of Indian Buddhism are marked by the names of Aśvaghosha, Nâgârjuna and the two brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu.
The word is not illuminating nor likely to excite religious emotion and the most that can be said for it is that it is less dreary than the void of Nâgârjuna. Another and more positive synonym is dharma-dhâtu, the all-embracing totality of things. It is only through our ignorance and subjectivity that things appear distinct and individuate.
The most celebrated was the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages, the seat of learning and art.
But still though the Pitakas emphasize the empirical duality of sense-organs and sense-objects, they also supply a basis for the doctrines of Nâgârjuna and Asanga, which like much late Buddhist metaphysics insist on using logic in regions where the master would not use it.
Whether in the second century A.D. the leaders of Buddhism already identified themselves with the sorcery which demoralized late Indian Mahayanism may be doubted, but tradition certainly ascribes to Nâgârjuna this corrupting mixture of metaphysics and magic. The third century offers a strange blank in Indian history.
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