The Madhyamaka School's Later Development: Buddhapalita and Bhavaviveka

After Nagarjuna and his direct disciple Aryadeva, whose Catuhsataka ("Four Hundred Verses," c. 3rd century CE) extended Madhyamaka critique specifically against rival non-Buddhist Indian philosophical schools such as Samkhya and Vaisesika, Madhyamaka philosophy underwent several centuries of relatively limited independent commentarial development before entering a period of vigorous internal methodological debate in the 5th and 6th centuries CE, centered on the proper way to conduct Madhyamaka argumentation itself. This debate crystallized around two figures, Buddhapalita and Bhavaviveka, whose disagreement over argumentative method — rather than over any substantive first-order doctrine about emptiness itself — came to define the later division of Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka into two named sub-schools.