Nagarjuna Books

Garfield translates Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika and provides a philosophical commentary. Mulamadhyamakakarika is the foundational text for all Mahayana Buddhism and is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy.

Writing to encourage a dear friend to practice the Dharma, the great Mahayana master Nagarjuna offers concise and common-sense instructions on how to begin training oneself in ethics, meditation, and wisdom in Letter to a Friend (Suhrllekha). Lama Mipham's commentary, composed for his own students in the nineteenth century, expands each point with memorable examples and provides an analytical outline of the text. Excellent introduction to the Buddhist path for lay Dharma students. Translated by L. Kawamura. Includes an essay on the literature on the Letter to a Friend, a line index in Tibetan transliteration, glossary of Tibetan terms, analyses by Lama Mipham and Sakya Pandita.

A new English translation of the founding text of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school of Buddhism, with the Tibetan version of the text included. The Root Stanzas holds an honored place in all branches of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as in the Buddhist traditions found in China, Japan, and Korea, because of the way it develops the seminal view of emptiness (shunyata), which is crucial to understanding Mahayana Buddhism and central to its practice. It is prized for its pithy and pointed arguments that show that things lack intrinsic being and thus are “empty” (shunya). They abide in the Middle Way, free from the extremes of permanence and annihilation.

The book features a collection of 260 devotional verses by N_g_rjuna, a pivotal figure in Buddhist philosophy and co-founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mah_y_na Buddhism alongside his disciple _ryadeva. These verses explore profound themes in Buddhism, reflecting N_g_rjuna's influential ideas and teachings that have shaped Buddhist thought.

This regrettably neglected text comprises 112 stanzas introduced by a brief prologue in prose. None of Nagarjuna's other works exhibit such a well-balanced and coherent structure as the Bodhicittavivarana. This is to some extent a natural consequence of the fact that the theme is at once simple and comprehensive: bodhicitta. It has a relative aspect consisting in the desire for the bodhi (awakening) of all living beings, and an absolute consisting in the unlimited cognition of shunyata (emptiness). The Bodhicittavivarana thus provides us with a compendium of the practice and theory of Mahayana Buddhism. This book consists of an introduction, the English translation of Bodhicittavivarana, the Tibetan transcription, Sanskrit fragments, additional notes and a new essay about the Greek roots of Buddhism.

All beings have the potential to recognize their true nature, their buddha nature, explicated here by Nagarjuna, Buddhism's single most important philosopher, with commentary from an eminent fourteenth-century sage.

There is no ornament like virtue, no misery like worry, no protection like patience, and no friend equal to generosity. In The Staff of Wisdom, the Indian Mahayana master Nagarjuna offers the practical wisdom of the Dharma in witty, thought-provoking, and uplifting verses that apply to all types of life situations. Expressing universal truths that remind us of basic human values, Tibetan scholar Sakya Pandita's Treasury gives profound advice for daily life in truly elegant sayings that remain readily in the mind.