For a more intuitive display, dates of books correspond roughly to the birth year of the author or commentator. Only a sampling of books for each author is included, but if you click on the figure, it will bring you to a page with much more information on books we publish. ;xNLx;;xNLx;Dates are approximate-and at times guesses before the second century CE-and all others should be validated. The Treasury of Lives has more authoritative and complete biographical information.;xNLx;;xNLx;;xSTx;b;xETx;Please send feedback to: ;xSTx;/b;xETx;timeline@shambhala.com
The first documented Buddhist texts translated into Chinese are those of the Parthian An Shigao (148–180 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism#History
While this account of Tibet starts with the tradition's description of the creation of the universe, the bulk is on the Tibetan empire begining in 127 BC and the coming of Buddhism to Tibet. A rich blend of history, legend, poetry, adventure, and romance, The Clear Mirror is a treasure-trove of traditional Tibetan narrative and folk wisdom. It presents in full the often-cited but elusive accounts of the origins of the Tibetan people, the coming of the Dharma to Tibet, and the appearance of Avalokiteshvara as the patron deity of Tibet. The text treats the era during which Buddhism came to Tibet, Lhasa became the capital, and the Jokhang and Ramoche temples were founded. Written to inform and entertain, the book has a pre-eminent position in Tibetan society.
For more on the book, see https://www.shambhala.com/nagarjuna-s-letter-to-a-friend-2951.html
Of Nagarjuna’s life, we know almost nothing. He is said to have been born into a Brahmin family in the south of India around the beginning of the second century CE. He became a monk and a teacher of high renown and exerted a profound and pervasive influence on the evolution of the Buddhist tradition in India and beyond. Much of his life seems to have been spent at Sriparvata in the southern province of Andhra Pradesh, at a monastery built for him by king Gotamiputra, for whom he composed the Suhrllekha, his celebrated Letter to a Friend. Nagarjuna is intimately associated with the Prajnaparamita sutras, the teachings on the Perfection of Wisdom, the earliest-known examples of which seem to have appeared in written form around the first century BCE, thus coinciding with the emergence of Mahayana, the Buddhism of the Great Vehicle. It is recorded in the Pali Canon that the Buddha foretold the disappearance of some of his most profound teachings. They would be misunderstood and neglected, and would fall into oblivion. “In this way,” he said, “those discourses spoken by the Tathāgata that are deep, deep in meaning, supramundane, dealing with emptiness, will disappear.” There is no knowing whether on that occasion he was referring to the Perfection of Wisdom, but it is certain that the earliest exponents of the Mahayana believed that, with the Prajnaparamita scriptures, they were recovering a profound and long-lost doctrine. Nagarjuna seems to have been deeply implicated in this rediscovery. Questions of historicity aside, the story that he brought back seven volumes of the Prajnaparamita sutras from the subterranean realm of the nagas, where they had been preserved, conveys a clear message. In the eyes of Nagarjuna’s contemporaries and of later generations, the appearance of the Prajnaparamita sutras marked a new beginning in the history of Buddhism, and yet the teachings they contained were not innovations. And in their interpretation and propagation, Nagarjuna played a crucial role. -Excerpted from the "Translator's Preface," The Root Stanzas of the Middle Way translated by Padmakara Translation Group
Nāgārjuna's works sit at the heart of Mahāyāna Buddhist thought and practice, but he was renowned in Asia not only for his Madhyamaka work, but also his poetic collection of praises, most famously In Praise of Dharmadhatu. This book explores the scope, contents, and significance of Nāgārjuna’s scriptural legacy in India and Tibet, focusing primarily on this seminal work. The translation of Nāgārjuna’s hymn to buddha nature—here called dharmadhatu—shows how buddha nature is temporarily obscured in the experience of ordinary sentient beings, gradually uncovered through the path of bodhisattvas, and finally revealed in full bloom as buddhahood. Included is a translation of the text’s earliest and most extensive commentary by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339), supplemented by relevant excerpts from all other available commentaries.
Nagarjuna is renowned for his penetrating analysis of reality. In the Precious Garland, he offers intimate counsel on how to conduct one's life and how to construct social policies that reflect Buddhist ideals. The advice for personal happiness is concerned first with improving one's condition over the course of lifetimes, and then with release from all kinds of suffering, culminating in Buddhahood. Nagarjuna describes the cause and effect sequences for the development of happiness within ordinary life, as well as the practices of wisdom, realizing emptiness, and compassion that lead to enlightenment. He describes a Buddha's qualities and offers encouraging advice on the effectiveness of practices that reveal the vast attributes of Buddhahood. In his advice on social and governmental policy, Nagarjuna emphasizes education and compassionate care for all living beings. He also objects to the death penalty. Calling for the appointment of government figures who are not seeking profit or fame, he advises that a selfish motivation will lead to misfortune. The book includes a detailed analysis of attachment to sensual objects as a preparation for realization of the profound truth that, when realized, makes attachment impossible.
This volume contains a translation of Seventy Stanzas, a fundamental work of Nagarjuna on the Madhyamika system of Buddhist philosophy, along with a commentary on it from the Prasangika viewpoint by Geshe Sonam Rinchen. David Komito summarizes basic Buddhist doctrines on perception and the creation of concepts, which have traditionally served as the backdrop for Nagarjuna's teachings about how people consistently misperceive and misunderstand the nature of the reality in which they live and the means through which they experience it. This book will interest Buddhist practitioners, scholars, and psychologists who seek a deeper understanding of Buddhist psychology and epistemology.
his 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.
See our Aryadeva Reader's Guide Here: https://www.shambhala.com/aryadeva/ While early biographies vary in detail and timing, traditional accounts such as those by Taranatha, Butön in his History of Buddhism, and Chandrakirti identify Aryadeva as being born in Sri Lanka in a royal family in the late first or early second century C.E. He rejected the throne and took monastic ordination and mastered all the Tripitaka (Sutra, Vinaya, and Abhidharma) as well as non-Buddhist philosophical systems. He then left to visit the holy sites of India, ending up in Pataliputra, present-day Patna in Bihar, where he became a direct disciple of Nagarjuna. He then accompanied him to Sri Parvata or Nagarjunakonda, the Buddhist center in Andhra Pradesh, now underwater. There, he studied with Nagarjuna and received tantric training, studying and meditating. Later Aryadeva built two dozen monasteries in the area and served the dharma in many ways. Some identify him as being one and the same with Karnaripa, one of the 84 great Mahasiddhas of India, who lived off essences and eventually attained the rainbow body.
Aryadeva's text is more than a commentary on Nagarjuna's Treatise on the Middle Way because it also explains the extensive paths associated with conventional truths. The Four Hundred Stanzas is one of the fundamental works of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, and Gyel-tsap's commentary is arguably the most complete and important of the Tibetan commentaries on it.
