Nagarjuna’s Mula-Madhyamaka-Karika: Examination of Time

Nagarjuna's Mula-Madhyamaka-Karika: Examination of Time – A Karika Book In Nagarjuna's Mula-Madhyamaka-Karika: Examination of Time, Tsultim Sanpo takes one of the most puzzling questions in Buddhist philosophy – what is time, does time endure, why isn't future dependent upon the past? – and walks the reader verse by verse through Nagarjuna's radical analysis. This second Karika Book in the series is written for anyone who loves Indian philosophy, Buddhist logic, or the kind of thinking found in authors like Jay Garfield, but wants the arguments presented in clear, concrete language. Rather than offering abstract theory, Nagarjuna's Mula-Madhyamaka-Karika: Examination of Time shows how our everyday talk about past, present, and future hides deep assumptions about existence and non-existence. Drawing on the Middle Way and the Buddha's teaching of dependent origination, Tsultim uses stories, examples, and step-by-step reasoning so that even a curious student can follow Nagarjuna without feeling lost. If you are looking for a Buddhist philosophy book that treats the Buddha's teachings as philosophy as well as practice, this volume will feel like a careful companion rather than a closed scholarly text. Each chapter of Nagarjuna's Mula-Madhyamaka-Karika: Examination of Time – A Karika Book unpacks a single verse from the chapter 19, showing how the idea of "time" collapses when we cannot find any independent, unchanging entity for it to rest upon. Along the way, Tsultim points to how this insight transforms our sense of self, memory, and change, making the book relevant not only to specialists in Buddhist logic and Indian philosophy but to anyone who has wondered whether things – or people – can ever be said to be truly permanent or truly gone. If Nagarjuna, dependent origination, and the Buddha's teachings as philosophy have intrigued you, Nagarjuna's Mula-Madhyamaka-Karika: Examination of Time offers a focused, readable doorway into the heart of the Middle Way.