Acharya Nagarjuna

About Acharya Nagarjuna

• Nagarjuna’s background cannot be said with certainty but believed that he originally belonged to Southern India. Centuries after his death his biographies were written in Chinese and Tibetan. It is expected that he lived between 150-250 CE. 
• Nearly 400 years later Nagarjuna, who is considered a second Budhha, was born. Present day Andhra Pradesh is believed to be his birth place and because of this Andhra Pradesh government has named the dam on River Krishna after him that is known as Nagarjuna Sagar.
• He was Brahmin who later adopted Buddhism.He became a monk and a scholar.
• He spent the last years of his life at his birth place i.e Andhra Pradesh and continued preaching there. It is said that Nagarjuna lived for 600 years and the way he left the earth is not known.

Acharya Nagarjuna Contribution in Buddhism

• Head of Nalanda University, writer of many treatises on rasayana alchemy and developer of the philosophy of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras. 
• He was the great Buddhist philosopher and the most revered person after Gautam Buddha in Buddhism. 
• The most important contribution of Nagarjuna to Buddhism is the concept of śūnyatā, or “emptiness. He wrote many writings, sutras and was responsible for spreading Mahayana Buddhism. He was a teacher at Nalanda University and because of his preaching he later came to be known as Acharaya.
• Nagarjuan gave two-truths doctrine which states that Buddhism has two levels of truth – the ultimate reality (paramārtha satya) and the conventionally or superficial reality (saṃvṛtisatya).
• Nagarjuna taught the concept of relativity. He explained that shortness is only possible because of long length relative to it.

Acharya Nagarjuna Contribution in Ayurveda

• He was an Ayurvedic physician (Ayurveda is a traditional Indian medicine system). 
• Nagarjuna had been credited with explaining the circulatory system and blood tissue. 
• He was also known as the “father of iatrochemistry” because of his work on the benefits of specifically treated minerals known as bhasmas.