A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t4.211

v2.c19.s6.t4.211

Tāranātha⁵ says that the adherents of the Hīnayāna declare the Śatasāhasrikā-Prajñā-Pāramitā to be the latest of the Mahāyāna-Sūtras, and the work of Nāgārjuna,⁶ and it is not impossible that this Prajñā-Pāramitā is indeed an apocryphal Sūtra which was produced by Nāgārjuna's school. It is more likely, however, that this statement is due to a confusion between the text of the great Prajñā-Pāramitā and the Prajñā-Pāramitā-Sūtra-Śāstra which was ascribed to Nāgārjuna, *i.e.*, the commentary on the Pañcaviṃśati-Sāhasrikā-Prajñā-Pāramitā.) At all events Nāgārjuna cannot possibly have been the founder of the Mahāyāna, as was so often supposed in former days; for there is no doubt that Mahāyāna-Sūtras were in existence long before his time.¹ According to Hsüan-Tsang,² Aśvaghoṣa, Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva and Kumāralabdha (=Kumāralāta) were contemporaries, and he calls them "the four suns which illumined the world." According to Kalhaṇa's Rājatarangiṇī (I, 173), the Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna was "the only lord of the land" in Kashmir at the period of the kings Huṣka, Juṣka and Kaniṣka. Tāranātha says that he was born in the days of Kaniṣka. It is a good working hypothesis, though nothing more, that he lived in the latter half of the 2nd century A.D.³ On the other hand, so many legends have been woven about his life, that doubts have even been expressed as to whether he was a historical personage at all.