Itay Ehre

In chapter 18 of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā Nāgārjuna presents an analysis of the Self and an attack on this concept. As part of this attack he claims in verse 18.5 that the final release is the ceasing of karma and conceptual activity. This seems to suggest that there is no acting or thinking in liberation. Moreover, karma according to Nagarjuna is a creative force which produces the body. Therefore it seems that from a liberated point of view, mind and body ceases to exist. Commentators have tried to “save” Nāgārjuna from this extreme nihilistic position by claiming that the ceasing is only of wrong actions and wrong beliefs. But such distinctions do not appear in the text. I will argue that we can take Nāgārjuna’s words literally and read him as describing a real annihilation of the mental and physical aspects of the world. Nevertheless, we must understand that this annihilation does not lead to an absolute nihilistic state: Nāgārjuna views the world as a dynamic interdependency which is empty of self-existence and this view prevents the acceptance of a static and self-existing nihilistic state.