Nagarjuna and his works Who was Nagarjun? This may look like a very stupid question, since every Bhuddist seems to know this great master very well. However, while legends abound,there is hardly anything that is know with cretainly about Nagarjuna’s life(probably second centuary) as far as “hard historical data” go.Usally,the indian and Tibetan tradition are not much intrested in these kinds of “facts” anyway,the main purpose of presenting “life stories” of great master in these traditions being to edify & inspire the reader to follow theirexamples. In that vein, to give just a rough picture by primarly following Tibetan accounts, ti is said that Nagarjuna was the Buddha in many sutras & tantras.2 Born into a Brahman family at Vidarbha in southeast India, he is reported to have been ordained by Rahulabhadra & received the name Sriman.3 He undertook a throrough study of all all the then availablescriptures of the hinayana & mahayana & defeated the Buddhiat monk Samkara & the Saindhava Sravakas, who criticized his teachings & the mahayana, as well as many non—Buddhista in debate. Eventually, he was invited to the land of the nagas, taught the dharma there, & obtained the prajnaparmita sutras from Taksaka, their king. For the rest of his life, he propagated a7 commanted extensily on these texts, thus becoming the founder of the Madhyamaka system. Nagarjuna spread the teachings of the mahayana far & wind & also built many temples & stupas. He seems to have spent the minddle period of his life mostly in the kingdom of Andhra in the eastern part of minddle India. There, he was supported by a king of the Satavahana dynasty,4 to whom he wrote his Suhrllekha & Ratnavali, & who is said to have eventually attained the same siddhi of long life as Nagarjuna. What did Nagarjuna Write or Not Write? …….:- This is certainly not the place to provide a comprehens-ive overview of all the many works ascribed to Nagarjuna that are preserved in Sankrit, Tibetan, & Chinese, nor to settle the disputes about which of them were actually written by him. In Indian sources & how the Tibetan tradition describes the significance & interrelations of what it calls Nagarjuna’s three scriptural collections—”the collection of speeches,” 11 “the collection of (Madhyamaka) reasoning,” 12 & “the collection of praisses.” (VARANSI)