Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s2.29

c19.s2.29

Serious doubt exists also as to the date of Nāgārjuna,⁴ who passes for the founder of the Madhyamaka system of the Mahāyāna; the most certain fact, perhaps, is that Āryadeva, who was apparently a younger contemporary, uses in a poem, *Cittaviśuddhiprakaraṇa*, the words *rāci* and *vāraka*, showing therefore a knowledge of Greek astrology which can hardly be supposed to have reached India in this form before A.D. 200, and may possibly be placed later; the argument is not conclusive, since we cannot absolutely prove that the new system of naming days of the week did not spread to India by A.D. 100, since it existed before the end of that century in Italy, but it agrees well enough with tradition to make A.D. 200 a reasonable date for Nāgārjuna. What is certain is that we may regard as his the *Mūlamadhyamakakārikās* memorial verses in which he sets out the doctrines of his system, an absolute negativism. His own comment, the *Akutobhayā*, exists in Tibetan, and in a revised version by an unknown hand was rendered into Chinese by Kumārajīva to whom (*circa* A.D. 405)