born 150
died 0441; 250
Indian monk and philosopher, founder of the Madhyamika school of Buddhism.
Born into a Brahman family, he underwent a spiritual conversion when he studied the doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism. His Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way and The Dialectical Method are critical analyses of false views about how existence arises, the means of knowledge, and the nature of reality. He established the concept of sunyata
emptiness, or the lack of an absolute reality behind the changing forms of existence
as a fundamental tenet of the Madhyamika school.