Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika and the Middle Way

Nagarjuna, traditionally dated to roughly the 2nd century CE (modern scholarship generally places him between about 150 and 250 CE), is the founder of the Madhyamaka ("Middle Way") school and one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Buddhism. Almost nothing about his life can be established with certainty beyond his authorship of a body of philosophical and, in later hagiography, tantric and alchemical works, and later traditions — particularly Tibetan biographical literature composed many centuries after his death — surrounded him with legendary material, including claims that he traveled to the undersea realm of the nagas (serpent-deities) to retrieve the Prajnaparamita sutras, which Mahayana tradition held had been hidden there since the Buddha's time because humanity was not yet ready to receive them.