A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s7.31

c33.s7.31

The views expressed in the *Prajñāpāramitās* are far better brought out in the *Mādhyamikasūtra*⁵ of Nāgārjuna, who seems to have been a Brahmin, perhaps from southern India, who was converted to Buddhism. His nihilistic or negativistic doctrine accepts, as does the Vedanta, two truths, the higher which ends in the vacuity of all conceptions owing to self-contradiction, and the lower which allows for ordinary life. He may be placed as a later contemporary of Açvaghoṣa. His own comment exists in Tibetan, as do those of Buddhapālita and Bhāvaviveka; that of Candrakīrti of the seventh century A. D. is extant in Sanskrit. To Nāgārjuna are attributed also a *Dharmasaṁgraha*,⁶ a collection of technical terms, and a *Suhṛllekha* extant in Tibet. Of Āryadeva we have already spoken.