This volume presents a new English translation of the founding text of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school of Mahayana Buddhism, Nagarjuna’s Root Stanzas of the Middle Way, and includes the Tibetan version of the text.

The Root Stanzas holds a central place in all the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, as well as those in China, Japan, and Korea. It is prized for its arguments showing that things lack their “own nature,” and thus are “empty” (shunya) of inherent existence and abide in the middle way, free from the extremes of permanence and nihilism. Thus, Nagarjuna’s stanzas develop the seminal view of emptiness (shunyata) so crucial to understanding Buddhist philosophy and so central to its practice.