Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Nāgārjuna – 110
Tanjur. Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra is also preserved nowhere
except in the Tanjur. It is a prolegomena not only to the
Madhyamika [90] system but to the Mahāyāna philosophy in general.
This too has been made accessible to us by La Vallée-Poussin in his
French version from the Tibetan (Le Museon, viii, 1907, 249 ff.; xi,
1910, 271 ff.). The Sanskrit commentary on the Madhyamikasūtra,
which we possess, is the one by Candrakīrti who probably lived in
the first half of the seventh century. Candrakīrti and Candragomi
were contemporaries and rivals. Candragomi was a disciple of
Sthiramati who flourished at the close of the sixth century. A
contemporary of Sthiramati was Dharmapāla. A disciple of the latter
knew Candrakīrti, while Bhavaviveka, the contemporary of
Dharmapāla, has been quoted by Candrakīrti (N. Peri, La vie de
Vasubandhu, Extrait du Bullétin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême
Orient). According to S. Ch. Vidyābhuśana (Journal of the Buddhist
Text Society, v. 1897) Candrakīrti, however, was a contemporary of
Saṅkara. It is also from these philosophical sūtras that we first come
to know its doctrine which, originating with the denial of the soul
taught in the Theravāda school, came to repudiate both Being and
non-Being and is, therefore, designated the Middle Doctrine.
Vindication of Middle doctrine
In this treatise the natural objection is placed in the mouth of the
opponents of Negativism: If all is “void” and if there is no beginning
and no end, then there could possibly be no four “noble truths,” no
conduct of life on the principles of recognition of these verities, no
fruit of good or bad deeds, no doctrine of the Buddha (Dharma), no
monastic order and, finally, no Buddha himself. Accordingly the