Diogenes

The Conception of Nagarjuna in the Context of Philosophical Study of Buddhism from the Second Half of 20th and first half of 21 Century

I. S. Urbanaeva

Abstract:

This article discusses the causes of great interest to Nagarjuna in the West in the second half of the twentieth century and highlights the main trends in the interpretation of his philosophy. The main reason was the general intellectual and spiritual situation of the Western world, and especially religious world crisis, the general disappointment in metaphysics and philosophical systems, common philosophical criticism. In this situation, it began to grow interest in the Eastern teachings, including Buddhism, especially to the mystery aspects. Another reason is that in the writings of Nagarjuna provides a systematic theory in the Western sense of the word «philosophy», which expresses the unique content of the doctrine of “historical” Buddha. The author also discusses the fallacy of European interpretations of Madhyamaka (Jaspers, Jacobson, Shcherbatsky, Faton, Betty), Indian interpretations (Dasgupta, Radhakrishnan, Murthy, Narain), writes about the distorted interpretations of Madhyamaka in the Far Eastern Buddhism. In the author’s view, with the advent of high-quality translations of Tibetan texts and Buddhist studies made by Ruegg, Thurman, Hopkins, Kapstein, Garfield, Cabezon the West has had an opportunity to better understand the philosophy of Nagarjuna.

Keywords:

Buddhist philosophy, Madhyamaka, Nagarjuna, Western, Indian and Far Eastern interpretations of Nagarjuna’s teaching, Tibetology

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The Conception of Nagarjuna in the Context of Philosophical Study of Buddhism from the Second Half of 20th and first half of 21 Century

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Diogenes
ISSN: 2367-9549 (Online)
ISSN: 1314-2763 (Print)

Diogenes is a peer-reviewed thematic book series for innovative studies in the field of philosophy and psychology. It is issued by the publishing house St. Cyril and St. Methodius of the University of Veliko Turnovo since 1993 and was initially established as a local platform for research publishing. Later, the series have associated a number of outstanding national and foreign scholars and thus has managed to widen significantly the scope and nationality of its contributors and published works. Today it is one of the most well-known and respected academic series for philosophy and psychology in Bulgaria. Each year the series has two issues: one, devoted to philosophical and one to psychological themes.

In the last few of years, Diogenes has moved towards international development. It has contributions from neighboring countries such as Romania, Serbia and Greece, as well as works of contributors from Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia and Albania.

Diogenes publishes only original work that has not been previously published. Every issue has a fixed thematic framework that is chosen by the editorial board on the basis of the topicality of certain contemporary problems and the raised public and scientific discussions. Among the previously published issues such problems and discussions are: the relationship between philosophy and science, the practical importance of philosophy, philosophy and culture, the problems of social psychology, the psychology of the person, etc.