The Problem of the Historical Nāgārjuna Revisited

Nāgārjuna, the founder of Madhyamaka, is an enigma. Scholars are unable to agree upon a date for him (within the first three centuries A.D.), or a place (almost anywhere in India), or even the number of Nāgārjunas (from one to four). This article suggests that none of the commonly advanced arguments about his date or habitat can be proved ; that later Nāgārjunas are more likely to have been (in some sense) the authors of pseudepigrapha than real individuals; that the most attractive (though unproved) reading of the evidence sets Nāgārjuna in the general area of the Andhra country in about the third century A.D.