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Nagarjuna

3rd-century Indian Buddhist philosopher

  • Fame74.7
  • Momentum10.0
  • Academics rank#85
Source-basedStable
  • Fame74.7
  • Momentum10.0
  • Academics rank#85
  • Wikipedia25.5K
Lived 150–250, aged 100
AcademicsAcademic
  • Wikipedia
    108 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    150–250
    Aged 100
Summary
Updated 2026-06-08

A South Indian monk from the second century whose treatises on emptiness became the philosophical backbone of Mahāyāna Buddhism — called "the second Buddha" in Tibet, studied across Asia for nearly two millennia.

Biography

About

Nāgārjuna lived in South India sometime between 150 and 250 CE, a philosopher-monk who rose as the foremost defender of the Mahāyāna movement when it needed intellectual foundation. He founded the Madhyamaka school — the Middle Way — and built it on the doctrine of śūnyatā, emptiness, a concept that would reshape Buddhist thought for a thousand years. His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the Root Verses, became the canon: it spawned commentaries in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean, and Japanese, each tradition reading him as indispensable. He remains the most important Buddhist philosopher after the Bu…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna
saidundated
No suffering is self-caused. Nothing causes itself. If another is not self-made, How could suffering be caused by another?
— Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 14.8–9
Nagarjuna
saidundated
I, without grasping will pass beyond sorrow, And I will attain nirvāṇa," one says. Whoever grasps like thisHas great grasping.
— § 16.9
Nagarjuna
saidundated
If you think you see bothDestruction and becoming, Then you see destruction and becomingThrough impaired vision.
— § 20.11
Nagarjuna
saidundated
Due to having faith one relies on the practices, Due to having wisdom one truly knows. Of these two wisdom is the chief, Faith is its prerequisite.
— The Precious Garland, 5
Nagarjuna
saidundated
I am not, I will not be. I have not, I will not have."That frightens all the childishAnd extinguishes fear in the wise.
— § 26
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
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By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
74.7
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum10.0
Historical24.9
Now attention38.4
Source confidence60.0
Completeness60.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
#85
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence