This article examines how the philosophical works of the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna (ca. 150–250) made their way to the cultural space of Europe.

Altogether over a hundred works have been ascribed to Nāgārjuna, yet he actually wrote less than ten of them. On top of a few letters and texts on morals, four philosophical treatises appear to be authentic: /Madhyamakaśāstra/, /Vigrahavyāvartanī/, /Śūnyatāsaptati/ and /Yukti//ṣ//aṣṭ//ikā/.

The Buddhist school of philosophy took shape in India, consisting of followers of Nāgārjuna and his student Āryadeva. The initial name of this school of philosophy was madhjamaka, which comes from /Madhyamakaśāstra/, the title of Nāgārjuna’s main work consisting of 27 chapters. Its second name, šuunjavaada, however, comes from the idea of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy, which holds that all objects are empty by their nature (/śūnya/ in Sanskrit).

Since Nāgārjuna’s original works in Sanskrit have not survived, their authenticity relies on their translations into Chinese, which were made in the 5th–6th centuries and on translations of those works into Tibetan that were made independently in the 8th–9th centuries.

In China, Nāgārjuna’s views influenced the Buddhism of the /chan/ (/zen/ in Japanese) school particularly significantly. Yet in the 14th century in Tibet, Tsongkhapa propagated Nāgārjuna’s philosophy to the extent that when the school of thought that he founded started ruling Tibet by way of the institution of the Dalai Lama, /m//ā//dhyamika-//prāsa//ṅ//gika/ was declared the official philosophical position. /Prasa//ṅ//ga/ is a method that was developed out of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy for using an opponent’s claims against the opponent himself and to further develop all conceptions to the point of absurdity in order to liberate the mind from biases.

Nāgārjuna’s philosophy has been translated into European languages starting from the last quarter of the 19th century. The boom in its translation began in the 1960s since Nāgārjuna’s teaching of emptiness fit in well with the spiritual foundations of the hippie movement that started in the USA and which Japanese zen Buddhism had helped to shape. At precisely the same time, thousands of intellectuals who had fled from Tibet due to China’s invasion of that country appeared in the West. Their philosophical views were to a great extent based on Nāgārjuna.

The translation of Nāgārjuna’s philosophical works gained lasting momentum at the end of the 1970s. Now there are already several hundred translations of his works into European languages. Even though he has long since left his worldly body, Nāgārjuna appears to participate ever more actively in philosophical disputes.