A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t4.223

v2.c19.s6.t4.223

The work consists of 400 memorial verses (Kārikās) in 27 chapters, on which the author himself has written a commentary, the Akutobhayā "The Safe One." Nāgārjuna was perhaps the first, or at all events one of the first, to make use of this style of presentation which is so greatly favoured in the scientific literature of the Indians, to wit—memorial verses with a commentary by the author himself. The Akutobhayā has not come down in Sanskrit, and our knowledge of it rests upon the Tibetan translation. The commentaries by Buddhapālita and Bhāvaviveka have also come down in Tibetan translations only. The commentary entitled Prasannapadā, "The Clear-Worded,"¹ by Candrakīrti, who on several occasions argues against his two predecessors, is the only one which we possess in Sanskrit. The Mādhyamika system, which is taught by Nāgārjuna and his pupil Āryadeva, and which found one of its chief exponents in Candrakīrti derives its name "the middle doctrine"² from the fact that it declares nothing either positive or negative, but merely relativity. The work begins with the famous eight negations, but it is here expressly stated that they mean the same as the doctrine of causally dependent origination:³