Nagarjuna (Jp. Ryuju)
Nagarjuna (Jp. Ryuju)
According to tradition, Nagarjuna was the first Mahayana patriarch to advocate the Pure Land way and Vasubandhu is attributed with being the first to explain it clearly. One of the greatest of all Buddhist teachers, Nagarjuna was a Mahayana scholar in southern India who is thought to have lived between AD. 150 and 250. He is especially known for his systematization of the doctrine of shunyata (non-substantiality). His philosophy was called the Madhyamika doctrine. Because of his overwhelming authority, he is also claimed as a patriarch by many other sects and schools. Nagarjuna is important to the Pure Land tradition for his treatise the Shih-chu-p'i-p'o-sha lun which praises Amida Buddha and advocates recitation of his name as the quick and easy path of faith (Williams, 257). However, there have been doubts raised as to whether the Shih-chu-p'i-p'o-sha lun was really written by Nagarjuna since there are no Sanskrit or Tibetan extant copies (Hirakawa, 1957).
