Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s2.31

c19.s2.31

we owe a legendary biography of the sage.¹ The work evoked not merely great praise but many commentaries; those of Buddhapālita and Bhāvaviveka exist only in Tibetan, but that of Candrakīrti, the *Prasannapadā*, is preserved in Sanskrit and may be ascribed to the seventh century A. D. We need not, of course, take seriously the conception of Nāgārjuna as the creator of the Śūnyavāda philosophy, though the Hīnayāna ascribes to him the *Śatasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā*. He must rather be counted as the great dialectician who effectively presented and won fame for the school, and whose work therefore threw other authors in the shade. The relation of his work to the various versions of the *Prajñāpāramitā* is wholly indeterminable with the evidence available; these texts are merely dogmatic assertions of the essential character of vacuity, and could be elaborated after Nāgārjuna or exist before him. Of other works of Nāgārjuna we have the *Dharmasaṃgraha*,² a collection of technical terms, which may or may not be his, and the *Suḥṛllekha*,³ addressed to an unknown king, also of dubious authenticity.