Exploring the Structure of Emptiness - Philosophical Hermeneutics of the text Catusstava of Nagarjuna: A Translation and Interpretation
Author:
Mathew Varghese
ISBN:
9788190995016
Binding:
Hardcover
Year:
2012
Pages:
413
Size:
15 x 23 x 3 cm
Weight:
650 grams
Price:
INR
995.00
Nagarjuna is one of the finest philosophers who were ever lived. This second century Buddhist philosophers from south India is known for his criticism on speculative theories and viewpoints. But his name is better known for introducing the idea of emptiness (sunyata), a philosophical concept that had hugely influenced the discourses of Eastern philosophy, religion, and culture for about 2000 years. Nagarjuna cleverly introduced emptiness (sunyata), into Buddhist discourses to explain is central philosophy: the philosophy of Middle Path. Through the negative mode of argumentation, he taught how we naturally get trapped into extreme viewpoints and speculate on them. His philosophy of Middle Path (Madhyamika) explains the progress of human reasoning moving in its natural course avoiding extreme viewpoints for finding harmony and freedom. During the second century, in a different milieu, Nagarjuna warned his students about the dangers of speculative thought created out of extreme viewpoints and philosophical doctrines. He taught them to look into the structures of such doctrines critically by using negation to know what the truth is. Therefore, the philosophical idea of emptiness (sunyata) is not the end of negation assuming perfect nihilism, but teaching us that it would work like medicine for removing all our ignorance. More precisely, it is like zero (sunya) in mathematics, a number with an undefined value, but real numbers find newer values by associating with it. It is a philosophical tool that helps us control our alleged fears, anger, pretty hatred, etc., by invoking the natural course of human compassion (karuna) for us to live and die naturally. Therefore, the structure of emptiness is the philosophy of Middle Path.
Mathew Varghese
Mathew Varghese is a scholar who works on classical philosophy, mainly, on the works of Nagarjuna, the second century Middle Path (Madhyamika) Buddhist philosopher. He shows keen interest in then discussing contemporary philosophical issues and interpreting them in classical philosophical framework. He has published two text-based interpretational works on Madhyamika philosophy: Principles of Buddhist Tantra (2008) and Exploring the Structure of Emptiness (2012); and also, several papers on Buddhist and comparative philosophy. He is a research fellow at The Nakamura Hajime Eastern Institute, Tokyo; and also teaches at Aoyama Gakuin University, Kanagawa University and Wako University, in and around Tokyo, offering courses on classical philosophy from a comparative perspective. As a researcher, he is keenly interested in researching the classical conception of Negation and its application possibilities.