Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 26, 2025
Nagarjuna, the Great Teacher, he who mightily set forth the noble doctrine of the greater Vehicle, and himself attained unto that height whereon a man rejoiceth eternally in the Faith, hath very sweetly persuaded men that they should receive the teaching of the Holy Name.
The name Amitâbha also occurs in the Vishnu Purana as the name of a class of gods and it is curious that they are in one place associated with other deities called the Mukhyas. The worship of Amitâbha, so far as its history can be traced, goes back to Saraha, the teacher of Nâgârjuna. He is said to have been a Sudra and his name seems un-Indian.
It is for this reason, namely that they admit neither being nor not-being but something between the two, that the followers of Nâgârjuna are known as the Mâdhyamikas or school of the middle doctrine, though the European reader is tempted to say that their theories are extreme to the point of being a reductio ad absurdum of the whole system.
The deity was summoned by the rites already described and the object of the performer was to obtain magical powers or siddhi. The successful sorcerer was known as siddha, and we hear of 84 mahâsiddhas, still celebrated in Tibet, who extend from Rahulabhadra Nâgârjuna to the thirteenth century. Many of them bear names which appear not to be Indian.
If Kanishka reigned from about 78 to 123 A.D. or even later, there is no difficulty in supposing that Aśvaghosha flourished in his reign and was followed by Nâgârjuna. There is nothing improbable in supposing that Vasubandhu, who is stated to have lived at Court, was patronized by the early Guptas.
In the present instance all that can be said is that certain ideas about the unreality of the world and about absolute and relative truth appear in several treatises both Brahmanic and Buddhist, such as the works of Śaṅkara and Nâgârjuna and the Gauḍa-pâdakârikâs, and of these the works attributed to Nâgârjuna seem to be the oldest.
For if tradition can be trusted, earlier teachers especially Nâgârjuna dealt in spells and invocations and the works of Asanga known to us are characterized by a somewhat scholastic piety and are chiefly occupied in defining and describing the various stages in the spiritual development of a Bodhisattva.
This second part contains spells and many mythological narratives, including one of an ancient Bodhisattva who burnt himself alive in honour of a former Buddha. Portions of the Lotus were translated into Chinese under the Western Tsin Dynasty 265-316 A.D. and it is quoted in the Mahâ-prajñâ-pâramitâ-śâstra ascribed to Nâgârjuna.
Hsüan Chuang says that he was carried off in captivity by a king who reigned somewhere in the east of the Pamirs and that he, Aśvaghosha, Nâgârjuna and Deva were styled the four shining suns. Asanga and Vasubandhu were brothers, sons of a Brahman who lived at Peshawar.
The Avadânas lie on the borderland between scripture and pious literature which uses human argument and refers to scripture for its authority. Of this literature the Mahayanist church has a goodly collection and the works ascribed to such doctors as Aśvaghosha, Nâgârjuna, Asanga and Vasubandhu hold a high place in general esteem. The Mahayanist scriptures are still a living force.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking