Talk:Nagarjuna
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Nagarjuna=Nagasena? That sounds utterly, utterly wrong. To my ear.कुक्कुरोवाच
- See ramblings at the end of the 1800s. Probably has been debunked by now but thought I'd be safe and add the tidbit until someone found a latter source (maybe PTS edition of milinda?) --prat 13:53, 2004 Apr 12 (UTC)
Contrary to the summaries in the page history for 2004 July 21, the article was not troubled by a bug. The limitation of 5 transclusions of the same template on one page is an important security feature against vandals, and does not interfere with what the facility was meant for. Which is to say that the remaining special-character templates are arguably being misused, and it might amount to, uh, right form to eliminate use of them before they are deleted. --Jerzy(t) 05:53, 2004 Aug 13 (UTC)
[edit] "cites the pratekyabuddhas"
Quote from referred article:
- sambhuddhānām anutpāde śrāvakāṇāṁ punaḥ kśaye
- And again, when the disciples are destroyed and full Buddhas do not arrive,
- jñānaṁ pratyekabuddhānām asamsargāt pravartate|12
- The gnosis (knowledge, etc.) of the independently enlightened Buddhas proceeds without association (with teachings).
In what sense is this citing any pratekyabuddhas for authority? It seems a tautology on pratekyabuddha, (and perhaps a reference to the latter-day decline of the dharma).
What I notice about it is that after negating so much, in this passage N. does not apply his usual formal method to this very conventional doctrine.
--Munge 23:17, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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- I removed this. It is not possible to cite pratekyabuddhas, and Nagarjuna would not pretend to do so. Regarding pratekyabuddhas, N. is stating that the Dharma is not a doctrine produced by a Buddha - i.e. that it may be discoved and indeed is so by pratekyabuddhas. He mentions this as a part of his argument to demonstrate that the Dharma is eternal.
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- I also removed the following couple of statements, as they added little to the article anyway, (the Tibetan issue is addressed more fully later in the article). (20040302)
[edit] Image of nagarjuna
that used to be here, was removed, put back removed -- I'm not gleaning from the page history why it was taken out. Anyone? Zero sharp 08:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
- Apparently, the article was vandalised by User:64.4.97.40 a couple weeks ago and nobody noticed. - Nat Krause(Talk!) 21:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "the canon"
The article says,
his philosophy holds assiduously to the canon, and while he does make explicit references to Mahāyāna texts, he is always careful to stay within the parameters set out by the canon.
My question is, which canon? If we mean the Pāli Canon, then let's say so. The only infomation provided by context is that canon is counterposed with Mahayana sutras. But the link goes to Tripitaka, which certainly is not exclusive of Mahayana literature.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 01:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
- I changed that last line a while ago (sorry, I was new to Wikipedia and didn't realize that I should discuss these things on the discussion page first). The passage had said something to the effect that Nagarjuna only quotes from the Tripitika and never mentions Mahayana sutras. This really isn't true, since his openning slokas seem to be a reference to a passage in the Perfection of Wisdom in 18,000 lines. In my humble opinion, "canon/Tripitaka" seems appropriate since I don't find any evidence that Nagarjuna was using a Pali version. More likely, he was using a Sanskrit version similar to one of those translated into Chinese. It is clear to me that at the time of Asanga, at least, (see the Mahayanasutralamkara, end of chp I) some thought Mahayana sutras to be opposed to the Tripitaka. Nagarjuna disputes this kind of claim in the Ratnavali. So the idea that Mahayana texts were not exclusive of the Tripitaka was probably precisely what was being debated.—Walser
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- Hi, thanks for your response. Actually, it is not necessary in most situations to discuss changes to articles beforehand. If there turns out to be a disagreement, we tend to discuss after that has come to light. So, you did the right thing by changing the passage to make it more accurate.
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- I know understand what you mean that, at the time Nagarjuna was writing, there would have been a concept of "the Tripitaka" which excluded the Mahayana sutras. Now, I'm not any kind of expert on this subject, but it seems to me that to contrast "Tripitaka" with "Mahayana sutras" might nevertheless be confusing to the average reader, because the Mahayana literature later became accepted by some people as part of the Tripitaka, and this is still the current view, unless I'm mistaken, in Tibet and East Asia. That said, I'm not sure what alternative wording to suggest. Perhaps something like, "the canon of āgamas" or "the non-Mahayana canon"? Perhaps that is too wordy.
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- At any rate, the meaning now seems fairly understandable and the exact wording is perhaps not worth too much tinkering.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 21:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
How about: "If the most commonly accepted attribution of texts (that of Christian Lindtner) holds, then he was clearly a Māhayānist, but his philosophy holds assiduously to the canonical texts recognized by all Buddhists during his lifetime, and while he does make explicit references to Mahāyāna texts, he is always careful to stay within the parameters described by that canon."? Walser
