ABSTRACT
From about the first century bce onward, Buddhism produced a number of “celebrity philosophers,” figures like Vasumitra, Ghoṣaka, Dharmatrāta, and Buddhadeva of the Mahāvibhāṣa who are known far more by the doctrines they espoused than by anything they did. Today, these four Vaibhāṣika masters are generally classified as the pivotal thinkers in early Sarvāstivāda Buddhism. By all accounts, the first celebrity philosopher to be identified as a Mahāyānist is Nāgārjuna, the ostensive founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. Indeed, for a number of complicated reasons, it is Nāgārjuna’s thought that ended up casting the longest shadow in Buddhist philosophical history through his influence on other pivotal writers in Himalayan, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Buddhism. Even outside of strictly Buddhist circles, Nāgārjuna continues to be studied as a philosopher in contemporary universities.
