In the Mula-madhyamika-karika, one of the most important surviving Buddhist texts, Nagarjuna, from the 2nd century AD, establishes emptiness as the true nature of reality: not as “nothingness” (abhava) but – provided we accept that nothing exists permanently, independently and from the beginning – as a liberating concept that encompasses and permeates everything beyond existence and non-existence, beyond essence and the self itself.
Intending to demolish misconceptions (vikalpa) and push for the abandonment of all views, Nagarjuna, "the second Buddha" for much of the Buddhist tradition, adopts a striking anti-metaphysical and anti-epistemological philosophical stance that would forever transform Buddhist teaching and fuel the thinking of leading Western thinkers dozens of centuries later.
According to legend, Nagarjuna was invited to the bottom of the ocean, to the kingdom of reptiles, from where he retrieved the literary wisdom of tradition to return it to the world and take his name, which means "noble reptile."
Little is known about the life of Nagarjuna (c. 150–250 CE), the "heir" of the Indian Mahayana Buddhist tradition and founder of the Madhyamaka (middle way) school of Buddhism. Nagarjuna wrote in Sanskrit and in his work Mula-madhyamaka-karika introduced the concept of emptiness (śūnyatā), turning Buddhist thought in an entirely new direction.
