Candrakirti’s Madhyamakavatarabhasya

This book contains a critical Sanskrit edition of the first five chapters of a work that presents the steps of the path to full Awakening according to the “Great Vehicle” of Buddhism. The author of the work, the Indian scholar Candrakirti (circa A.D. 570–650), is one of the most important representatives of the Madhyamaka, the “Middle Way” school. A central theme of the tradition is the emptiness or lack of reality of all things and beings. Those aspiring to achieve Awakening, the bodhisattvas, dedicate themselves to cultivating insight into emptiness and realizing the ultimate state of things, as well as to perfecting the practice of a group of ethical and spiritually oriented qualities, such as generosity and patience, for the sake of attaining Buddhahood. Unlike the followers of the so-called “Lesser Vehicle” the bodhisattvas vow, due to their deep compassion, to postpone entering Nirvana until they reach Buddhahood, since it is the attainment of Buddhahood that endows them with the power to comprehensively help sentient beings.
Until now, these first five chapters of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya were available to scholars only in their Tibetan translation. The textual edition presented here is based on the sole extant, and only recently available, Sanskrit manuscript of the work, which had been preserved for centuries in Tibet. The new access to the text in its original language not only facilitates a better understanding of Candrakirti’s philosophical views and his stance on topics relevant to liberation but allows for deeper appreciation of his contribution to an important phase of Indian Buddhism.