The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s7.95

v1.c7.s7.95

Indeed the most outstanding personality of this age in the field of religion, philosophy and literature was the Buddhist saint Nāgārjuna. Yet we have no precise information about either his life or his works. Legends have grown so thickly round him that he appears almost a mythical figure. In Chinese and indigenous writings he is depicted as a physician, an astrologer, a magician, the founder of the Madhyamika school of Buddhism, and above all an expounder of the *Śūnyavāda*. According to Yuan Chwang he spent the last years of his life at Po-lo-mo-lo-kili under the patronage of a king styled ‘Sha-to-p’o-ha’, i.e. Sātavāhana. A passage in Bāṇa's *Harṣacharita* shows that according to the seventh-century tradition a Sātavāhana, *the lord of the three oceans*, was the friend of Nāgārjuna. In his *Suḥrllekha*, Nāgārjuna himself mentions a Sātavāhana. But all these references taken together do not give us any information beyond the mere fact that a certain Sātavāhana was the contemporary of Nāgārjuna. Since the names of Kanishka, Vasumitra, Aśvaghosha, &c., occur in the writings ascribed to him, it is very likely that he lived in the second century A.D., and that his Sātavāhana friend was Yajña Śrī Sātakarṇi or one of his successors.¹ Po-lo-mo-lo-kili may be identified with Śrī-Parvata which, according to Tārānāth, was the abode of Nāgārjuna. That Śrī-Parvata was another name of Nāgārjunakoṇḍa (in the Guṇṭūr district) is established by an inscription discovered there.² Of the treatises composed by this Buddhist saint about two dozen have survived in Chinese translations. *Prajñāparamita Śāstra*, *Mūlamādhyamika Śāstra*, *Dvādaśa Nikāya Śāstra*, *Śūnyasaptathi*, and *Suḥrllekha* are some of his more important works. A *Yogasāra*, a *Ratiśāstra*, and a *Rasaratnākara* have also been attributed to him.³